


Gory, Gory, What a Helluva Way to Die.

by steeleye



Series: After The First Won. [2]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), Starship Troopers - Robert A. Heinlein
Genre: Action/Adventure, Gen, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-11
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:21:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 48,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21755194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steeleye/pseuds/steeleye
Summary: “There was blood upon the risers, there were brains upon her chute; intestines were a-dangling from her powered armour suit.” With Sunnydale destroyed, Dawn is flung into the future where she experiences her new life in the Terran Alliance Marine Corps.
Series: After The First Won. [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1556119
Comments: 5
Kudos: 6





	1. Chapter 1

Gory, Gory, What a Helluva Way to Die.

By Steeleye.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I write these stories for fun not profit.

 **Crossover:** Inspired by the book, 'Starship Troopers' by Robert Heinlein.

 **Spelling, Punctuation, and Grammar:** Written in glorious UK-English (the original and best) which is different to US-English.

**Timeline:** Part of 'After the First Won’, series of stories. 

******Words:** 14 Chapters of 3000+ words each.****

**********Warnings:** Don't mess with Dawn Summers.**** ** **

**************Summary:** “There was blood upon the risers, there were brains upon her chute; intestines were a-dangling from her powered armour suit.” With Sunnydale destroyed, Dawn is flung into the future where she experiences her new life in the Terran Alliance Marine Corps.**** ** ** ** **

******************** ** ** ** ** ** **

0=0=0=0

**Sunnydale, 2003 CE.**

“ITS OVER, GET OUT, RUN!” Faith yelled along the corridor to where Dawn and Xander fought the Bringers.

Waving his hand in acknowledgement, Xander knew that if Faith said to run, that meant Buffy was dead and there was nothing they could do to stop the Uber-vamps. Keeping a tight hold on his sword, he turned and grabbed hold of Dawn's wrist and started to drag her towards the door.

“What's happening!?” Dawn demanded as she struggled against the irresistible force that was Xander Harris.

“Buffy's dead, we lost, we're outta here!” Xander replied as he desperately controlled his emotions and pulled Dawn out into the daylight where the Uber-vamps couldn't follow.

“NOOOOO!” Dawn wailed as she tried to run back into the building and save her already dead sister.

0=0=0=0

The last thing Dawn remembered of that day was, Xander keeping a firm grip on her wrist as he dragged her out of the collapsing Sunnydale High. Previously, Buffy had told him to make sure she got out alive. Well, that'd been an order he'd seemed more than happy to comply with on that fateful day. The day when Buffy and all the others had sacrificed themselves as they'd attempted to stop The First. Despite Dawn's kicking and screaming, Xander had dragged her away from the soon to be ruined high school. Once out in the open he'd led her back into central Sunnydale where they'd stopped long enough for him to steal a shotgun and several dozen boxes of cartridges. Next they'd found a pick-up that had been carelessly left unlocked by its former owner. Finally they'd broken into a food market and stolen food, water and all the cash they could find.

After shooting several Bringers who'd tried to interfere with their escape plans, Dawn and Xander had jumped into the pick-up and headed east out of town. They'd not gone far when a fissure in the road opened up in front of them; Dawn remember how she'd screamed and clutched hold of Xander's arm as the vehicle had nosed over into the sink hole. The pick-up had rammed into the side of the crevasse flinging both Xander and herself into the steering wheel and dashboard. Terrified out of her mind, Dawn later vaguely remembered holding on to Xander and telling him that she loved him just before the world turned black. When Dawn awoke she found herself lying in the grass under some trees; sitting up she'd seen that there was, no road, no hole, no car and no Xander.

0=0=0=0

**Sunnidee, 3509 CE.**

“So this is the future,” Dawn told herself with a sigh; she was sitting on a bench in the park where she often went to eat her sandwiches on her midday break. 

Eating her lunch she watched as a crowd of young girls played a pretty rough and noisy game of soccer. Watching the girls kick the ball around, Dawn smiled to herself, these future girls seemed to be a lot more 'physical' than the girls from her own time. It’d been one of the many adjustments she'd had to make when she'd found herself in this strange future world. But after over one-thousand years of fighting for their very lives womankind was pretty tough

0=0=0=0

The local police had picked her up as Dawn'd wandered along the road between Sunnidee and Sanmara. They'd taken her to a hospital where she'd been examined by a doctor who reported back to the police when she saw the scars on Dawn's wrists and stomach; adding this to her broken ribs and the severe bruising all over her body, the doctor diagnosed 'abuse'. The police had tried to question Dawn but they’d got nowhere. Having quickly realised that something very strange was going on (like when the doctor had made her scars and bruising disappear with a wave of some strange medical devise) and after having her broken ribs healed in less than twenty-four hours; Dawn decided to act as if she was suffering from amnesia and played dumb.

Eventually the police gave up on the girl with no past and no memories. They'd searched the area around where they'd found her, they'd checked all their databases, but could find no trace of a Dawn Summers. After four or five days in hospital, she was released and was placed into the care of the local social services. After spending three weeks in a hostel for teenage girls and having been given a psych-evaluation to check she had no mental problems, she was placed in a foster home with a couple who had experience with 'troubled' teens.

Maddie and Hannah Wright, were a middle-aged couple who'd never had children. By the time Dawn moved in with them, she'd worked out that not only was she in the future but she was in a future that had no men in it. Everyone she came into contact with was female, okay a lot of them seemed very 'butch' to Dawn but they were all definitely 'girls'. However, for a society that only had women in it, having children (almost exclusively girls) did seem to be a very popular hobby. Even with Dawn's basic grasp of human biology she realised that there was something extremely weird going on here. It wasn't until after she started back at High School that she began to realise what had happened.

0=0=0=0

Of course all her teachers had been briefed about 'the girl with no past' and as a result Dawn found herself doing a lot of remedial courses. Most, she was able to drop once she'd proved that she hadn't forgotten 'everything', like how to read and write (although the English she spoke and wrote was considered somewhat archaic). However, there was one course she didn't want to drop and this was remedial history. Dawn had found herself shocked but not completely surprised when she discovered that not only had 'The First Evil' won in Sunnydale, but it'd almost won all over the world. It was only when he'd released a plague, or cast a powerful spell, on the male half of the population that humanity had almost gone under.

The First's plague (in the here and now it was generally assumed that it was some form of biological weapon), had killed off or reduced the male half of the population to mindless, homicidal, rapists. The women of that time had been forced to kill their own husbands, sons, brothers and lovers or be killed themselves. While this was happening The First tightened his grip on the war torn world. After the world finally fell into chaos, The First ruled the world, but only for a short time. It was then that, The First became the victim of his own success as his allies, both human and demonic, fell out with each other and started to fight amongst themselves over the spoils of victory. Once again the world descended into war and chaos. After many years of war, disease and famine the monsters retreated to their strongholds and 'womankind' was left to pick up the pieces. After centuries of struggle womankind had eventually rebuilt a world free of the First's influence and had left the planet and were even now exploring the stars. 

Of course this didn't tell Dawn were all the babies came from. At school she'd learnt that there were still some men. About one in a hundred births were male, as soon as a male child was born it was taken by the government to be raised and eventually sent to one of the fertility clinics which it appeared was were women went if they wanted to get pregnant. Having children seemed to Dawn to be a very popular amongst a high proportion of future women. But even so the world's population was now only just over one billion, there was still a lot of room to move into, plus there were new colonies on other planets so womankind was spread pretty thinly.

0=0=0=0

Watching as one of the teams scored a goal and started to hug each other as the other team went dejectedly back to the kick off point, Dawn checked her pocket computer, a gift from her foster parents, she saw that it was nearly time to go back to work. Maddie had found her a job in a dress shop to fill the time between graduating from High School and going to college in the Fall. But Dawn wasn't sure she wanted to go to college, sure she'd done well enough at school but not _that_ well, she was pretty sure she'd find college a struggle. It wasn't because she was stupid or anything, it was just that there was so much that was still alien to her about her adopted world.

For example look at relationships, she told herself. Although she could accept the fact that the only physical relationship she was ever likely to have would be with another woman, it still didn't seem quite _real_ to her. Yes, she'd had a couple of girlfriends and had enjoyed the 'sexual' part of the relationship, yet it hadn't felt 'genuine' to her. Somewhere at the back of her mind was the thought that some day she'd meet a guy and she'd leave all the girl-on-girl stuff behind. The fact that there were no guys, or at least none that she'd want any sort of relationship with, didn't appear to change her mind. Deep down she hoped she'd get over these feelings, but they'd been the cause of both of the break ups with her girlfriends. Somehow they'd known that she wasn't fully committed to their relationship, there'd been a lot of crying and recrimination and Dawn had found herself with no one to take to the Graduation Prom.

So, as it looking increasingly likely that she wasn't going to go to college, she asked herself what was she going to do with her life? There was no way she was going to work in the dress shop for the rest of her life, it was a nice enough job but it wasn't something she wanted to make into a career. Plus, if she decided to go into the world of 'retail' she'd need to go to college to do a couple of retail management courses unless she wanted to stay a shop girl for the rest of her life. Or until she got married became a wife and 'home maker' and started a family, not that there was anything wrong with that.

Getting up from the bench, Dawn left the girls to their game and headed slowly back to work. By chance her route took her through Sunnidee's central plaza where the 'Alliance Building' was situated. Coming to a halt, Dawn found herself looking up at the six story slab of metal and glass where the Alliance had its offices; she began to wonder if doing some form of Alliance service was the answer to her problems. The Alliance offered jobs in 'government', science, disaster relief, space exploration and the military both planet side and space borne branches. Thinking for a moment, Dawn decided, she had no interest in 'government' jobs, she probably wasn't well enough educated to do anything concerned with 'science', but, Space Exploration sounded interesting. Checking the time once more, Dawn found she was going to be late back to work anyway so on a whim she changed course and headed for the door to the Alliance Building.

0=0=0=0

Entering the Alliance building, Dawn found herself in a large, busy, lobby full of people who all appeared to be in a hurry to be somewhere else. Turning she saw a security guard walking towards her. Smiling, Dawn asked the woman where she could go to sign on for the Alliance's space exploration organisation. The guard returned her smiled and directed her to the far side of the hall.

An hour later Dawn walked out of the Terrain Alliance Space Exploration Organisation's recruiting office with her dreams of exploring strange new worlds and discovering strange new races and civilisations in tatters. Okay yes, she might have got a job as a cook or a steward on an exploration ship but actually being one of the people who went out there to discovered things, well that wasn't going to happen. Not unless she spent about six years in college and training before even seeing a starship and that wasn't what she wanted to do just now.

Standing in the middle of the hall as people hurried by, Dawn's eye happened to fall on the Terrain Alliance's military recruiting office. Looking at the holograms in the windows of soldiers and space women doing all sorts of exciting looking sports and adventure training, Dawn wondered if perhaps as she'd failed at everything else maybe a life in the military would suit her. Okay, so she probably wouldn't be a space pilot, but the military as likely as not had something better than 'cook' or 'steward' to offer her. Slowly at first but with growing confidence she walked towards the entrance of the recruiting office.

0=0=0=0

Inside the place was pretty busy too, so it took Dawn a minute or two to stubble upon the 'Star Force' recruiting desk. Dawn had decided that she definitely wanted to go into space and from what she'd learnt about Star Force at school it seemed to fit the bill. Pulling back her shoulders, she marched over to where a recruiting sergeant sat behind a desk. It was only when Dawn got to the recruiter's position she noticed that the woman had no legs and only one real arm. The missing arm had been replaced with a very clunky looking prosthetic. This, Dawn thought, was very odd because, she knew that modern prosthetics were almost indistinguishable from the real thing. It was only then that she realised that this must be the way that Star Force weeded out the people that weren't fully committed. So, they put disabled veterans on recruiting duty to discourage the overly 'romantic' and gullible. The recruiter had at least four lines of colourful looking medal ribbons on her dark blue jacket, if Dawn'd known at the time how to read the recruiting sergeant's medal ribbons, she'd have been even more impressed and a lot less cocky.

“I totally wanna join up,” Dawn announced as she came to a halt in front of the recruiter.

“As what?” the sergeant hardy glanced up at her, “A cook?”

“No!” Dawn replied her hopes slightly dented, she'd thought the military would welcome her with open arms, after all she wasn't completely stupid. 

This being a sort of spur of the moment type of thing, Dawn hadn't put very much thought into what she actually wanted to do, she only knew that she wanted to do _something_ other than sell dresses she couldn't afford to women who hardly noticed her existence. Looking for inspiration Dawn happened to see a picture of a woman in what looked like an armoured suit with the words, 'The Terran Alliance Marine Corps are looking for a few good women' printed across the poster, “I wanna join the Marines, ma'am!”

“The Marines, huh?” this time the sergeant did look up at her and from the expression on her face, Dawn thought that she wasn't overly impressed by what she saw, “The Marines were my unit, what makes you think you can hack it in my beloved Corps?”

“Erm...” Dawn hesitated, apart from a burning desire to get away from the dress shop and maybe see a little of the known universe for less than thirty Alliance Dollars a day, she wondered what _did_ make her think she'd make a good Marine?

“Well?” the sergeant was looking impatiently at her computer screen, obviously there was something more important that needed her attention than the silly little girl who thought she could be a Marine.

“Erm...” Dawn said again just before a flash of inspiration hit her, “...I want to protect and serve!”

“That's the Slayer Corps, you're not a slayer are you?” 

“No ma'am,” Dawn replied and some how felt she'd let the sergeant down

“Okay,” sighed the recruiter heavily, “what's your name?” the sergeant asked as she did something with her computer screen.

“Dawn Summers.” Dawn took out her wallet and handed over her identity card

“Okay,” the recruiter gave Dawn a long searching look, “I'll give you a chance,” she held out her hand to Dawn and took the card before placing it a reader.

Over the next six hours Dawn was subjected to a battery of physical and mental tests which seemed to be designed to embarrass her in every way possible. After these tests the recruiting sergeant did a lot of typing after asking Dawn some more searching questions, particularly about her suspected abuse and the fact she'd appeared to have lost her memory. Eventually and after a lot of 'humming' and even more questions, she handed Dawn her enlistment papers stamped with a big red 'APPROVED' over the top of the printing.

“Welcome to the Terran Alliance Marine Corps, Private Summers and don't make me regret letting you join,” the recruiter gave Dawn a friendly wink as she said the words, “Now I'll just find an officer to take your oath and we can start you on your new career, good luck sister.”

By the end of the day Dawn was properly enlisted in the TAMC and would soon be heading for Camp Sanders in Florida to start her training.

0=0=0=0

By Alliance law, Dawn was allowed a one week 'cooling off' period. If she so chose she could cancel her enlistment without incurring any penalties. Going home that evening Dawn told her adopted family what she'd done. Much to her surprise neither Maddie or Hannah tried to talk her out of her decision, they'd always said they'd support Dawn in any choice she wanted to make. However, that night after Dawn had gone to bed she heard her guardians talking in low voices about what she'd done and she was sure she could hear Hannah crying.

When the week long cooling off period was over and after a farewell party to which all her school friends had been invited, Dawn set off to the Alliance Building accompanied only by Maddie and Hannah who'd come to see her off. After a lot of hugging and kissing, Dawn wiped the tears from her eyes and headed off into the Alliance Building and over to the military recruiting office.

0=0=0=0

After a multitude of even more tests, most of which were physical, which Dawn passed reasonably easily and after spending a night in the small barracks at the Alliance Building; she was woken at the unearthly hour of five o'clock in the morning. Still half asleep, she was told to get a shower and dressed before getting a free breakfast in the building's canteen. At about six-thirty Dawn and two other recruits were put aboard the monorail that would take them to LA. From there they would catch the sub orbital shuttle to Camp Sanders in Florida.

“So where are they sending you?” a Star Force Petty Officer asked when Dawn reported to the Star Force office at the LA terminal.

“Camp Sanders, Marine training, Ma'am,” Dawn replied proudly.

“Camp Sanders, eh?” the Star Force NCO consulted her pad as she gave Dawn a pitying look.

“Yes Ma'am!” Dawn cried full of piss and vinegar, but to paraphrase an ancient song; '...if she'd known then what she knew now, she wouldn't have been so barmy', Dawn was due for a wake up call.

0=0=0=0


	2. Chapter 2

**Terran Alliance Marine Corps training facility, Camp Sanders, Florida, North American Union.**

Along with about five hundred other young hopefuls, Dawn had her documentation checked before she was given even more documents. After this she and her new friends were issued with some really 'unfashionable' uniforms and a personnel number. On that day Dawn stopped being plain old, Dawn Summers, shop girl, time traveller and ex-mystical key and magically became, 46582966, Private Dawn Summers of 'B' Company, 9th Provisional Marine Battalion, she also felt about twelve feet tall...a feeling that she soon lost on day two of the rest cure that they called 'Basic Military Training', or more colloquially 'Boot Camp'.

After being issued with all their new 'kit', Dawn and her buddies were shown to the 'rooms' that would be home for the duration of their BMT. These rooms turned out to be 'section' rooms that were just big enough for eight nervous young women who were now beginning to think that maybe...just maybe, they'd all made a terrible mistake. Of course Dawn didn't feel that way (well, not at first) she was still thinking that whatever discomforts she might have to endure were just a gate way to a glittering future out amongst the stars. The other buildings on the camp included the cookhouse, the battalion stores, the armoury and lecture halls and the gymnasium; there were laundries and drying rooms situated in each of the company barrack blocks. After dumping their new equipment and uniforms in the lockers that awaited them the recruit sections were told which of the four section platoons they were in; they were also introduced to their platoon sergeant and the four junior NCOs who'd be their primary instructors for there stay at Camp Sanders. Finally one of their instructors came to each room and showed the recruits how to wear their stiff, uncomfortable, new uniforms.

After this major affront of their collective fashion senses they were 'marched' (using the term loosely) to get their hair cut. In the week after Dawn had decided to enlist she'd also decided to get her hair cut before she left home, so her hair was just about collar length. Having realised that she'd need to have it cut, Dawn had taken the time to have it styled by a professional rather than by a ham-fisted sadist with a set of blunt hair clippers, she left the hairdressers with her hair cut so it would conform to Marine Corps standards for grooming. Basically there were two hairstyles; a girl could choose between a clean sweep, which left her hair about a quarter of an inch long; or the less severe style that left the victim's hair about the length she had it now. Dawn was surprised at the number of girls who baulked at getting their hair cut. About twenty refused and were discharged almost immediately, even so a lot of girls cried as their hair was cut off. After the trauma of having their hair cut the recruits were marched to the cook house and fed. The food was hot, plentiful, well prepared and nourishing, it was also pretty basic, but they could eat as much as they wanted as long as they ate what was on their plates. After dinner they were dismissed to their rooms for the night.

0=0=0=0

The next morning Dawn and her room-mates were awoken to the sound of some maniac blowing on a bugle and yet more maniacs running around yelling for everyone to get up and get dressed for PT. Peering out from under her blankets and seeing it was still dark, Dawn rolled over and tried to go back to sleep, obviously this was some sort of hazing exercise and she wasn't going to fall for it. The next thing she knew was she was stretched out on the cold, hard and insufficiently polished floor with her bed lying on top of her.

The recruits were given ten minutes to use the 'facilities' (imagine, if you will, sharing a bathroom with thirty-two 'sisters') before getting dressed for early morning PT. By the time Dawn and her sister recruits stumbled out on to the parade square it was more or less light. The recruits were pushed into what could charitably called 'ranks' and brought to a rough approximation of attention as some sadist with a very loud voice called the roll. Dawn was shocked to hear that the battalion had already lost about fifty out of the five hundred recruits they'd started with the previous day. 

Eventually all the remaining recruits were standing in ranks wondering when they could go for breakfast (breakfast was still two hours away, but no one knew that at the time). There was a slight shifting in the ranks as if everyone had sensed some new terror approaching. Of course they'd all done it instinctively and slowly heads started to turn as a tall figure walked briskly out of the watery morning light to stand in front of the somewhat reduced and anxious 9th Provisional Battalion.

“I am Sergeant-Major Shimira O'Toole,” announced the woman in a voice like brass who stood tall and proud in front of the battalion.

O'Toole was about six feet tall and disgustingly fit by the looks of her well scrubbed face. Her blue-black hair was cut in a severe 'bob' under her bottle green Marine beret and her dusky skin seemed to exude an air of health and efficiency that the recruits all knew that they'd never in their wildest fantasies be able to emulate.

“I am your Senior Battalion Instructor,” O'Toole's voice sounded like the trump of doom in Dawn's ears, “I do not discriminate on the grounds of age, race or religion, to me you are _all_ equally worthless!” O'Toole explained as she looked along the ranks of frightened young women, “I will not be your 'friend',” she said the word like it was some sort of vile insult, “I will not be your big sister and I will most definitely not be your mother! But one day, if you make the grade...which I seriously doubt any of you will...you will honour my name and thank, which ever personification of the Goddess you might hold dear, that you had the good fortune to run into me during your pitiful and worthless lives.” O'Toole cast her eyes over the recruits and obviously didn't like what she saw. “So,” she continued, “this is what my beloved Corps has come to? I have to try and train you dregs of hufemity so that The First can't rule the universe...” she shook her head slowly and Dawn was almost convinced the Sergeant-Major was about to burst into tears. “Is there anyone here who thinks that she can take me on, hand-to-hand and show me that at least one of you isn't a worthless, man-fucker?” 

Now, I bet you're all expecting to hear how Dawn stayed very quiet and didn't step forward to accept the Sergeant-Majors challenge...and yes, you're right, Dawn stepped right up. In her defence it has to be said that not only had she watched and trained with her sister; she'd also done some self defence classes at school, plus she'd been something of a school track and field athlete when she didn't have her head stuck in a book. Add this to her still being full of 'piss and vinegar' and her stepping up to accept the challenge was almost a forgone conclusion. Unfortunately all her previous combat experience wasn't enough to allow her to last more than about ten seconds against Sergeant-Major O'Toole. As Dawn lay groaning on the ground, the Sergeant-Major came over to where she'd thrown her and looked down at the dazed recruit.

“You alright, Private?”

“Yes, Ma'am,” Dawn moaned as she began to pick herself up off the floor; unexpectedly Dawn felt O'Toole pull her to her feet, O'Toole looked into Dawn's eyes and held up two fingers.

“How many fingers?” she demanded.

“Two, Ma'am.” Dawn swayed as she was still a little unsteady on her feet.

“Well done,” O'Toole said quietly, “in a few weeks I'll teach you what you did wrong.”

“Yes Ma'am.”

“Good, now get back into ranks.” hands on hips O'Toole turned to face the rest of the Battalion, “I have one girl who _might_ make the grade and become a Marine, are there any more?” 

Still rubbing her butt from where it had come into hard contact with the parade ground, Dawn trotted back to her platoon and rejoined the ranks. It was obvious that she'd got a lot to learn; however she did notice that no one else had stepped up to take on the Sergeant-Major.

0=0=0=0

From about the time of the Romans it has taken around twenty-four weeks to turn a civilian, like Dawn and her new found sisters, into something like soldiers. By the end of their first twenty-four weeks in the Marines, Dawn and her sisters would have been counted as fully trained infantry soldiers in almost any 'historical' military force before the advent of modern, infantry, combat armour and weapons. But, they were not Marines yet, that would take another twenty-four weeks of specialist training, which included learning to wear and maintain their armoured combat suits. Training also included practice assault landings onto all terrain imaginable (including several onto the surface of the moon) and then just to make sure they'd not forgotten any of their basic training, they’d be hauled away, without notice, and sent on military exercises. Dawn particularly remembered one notable day when they where we were all stripped naked and dumped in the Canadian Rockies and told they had four days to get back to civilisation...luckily it was summer so no one froze to death. However, a couple of recruits managed to fall off mountains, one was killed while the other had to be discharged from military service on medical grounds.

That first period at Camp Sanders involved a lot of running around to get fit (Dawn thought she _was_ fit...but, its amazing how wrong you can be), learning to march and look after yourself and your kit...after all you can't win a war with dirty boots! Actually at various times in history this was literally true; if you didn't polish your boots they'd let in the water. If the water got in you'd stand a good chance of contracting something interesting like 'Trench Foot'. If you caught trench foot you couldn't march, if an army couldn't march it was immobile and therefore dead. Plus polished boots looked smarter and more 'military'.

They learnt how to use and maintain various weapons; anything from a standard sidearm to an anti-armour guided missile. They learnt tactics (not strategy, that would come much later), fieldcraft and survival techniques...which were very useful whenever they were left naked in the Canadian Rockies. To the day she died, Dawn could still make a pretty good stone tipped spear and use a sling like she'd been born to it. But the hardest thing Dawn or any of her friends had to learn at Sanders was how to read a map...there's something (or so it seemed to Dawn) about the female psyche that prevents a woman from truly coming to grips with maps. Dawn suspected it all went back to prehistoric times when women were 'gathers' and didn't go very far from their villages or camps, so didn't need to remember what the terrain far from their home looked like. 

At the end of those first twenty-four weeks the recruits were all given a forty-eight hour pass. They had nearly six months back pay burning holes in their pockets and the Marine Corps would see to it that they got home or to wherever they wanted to go. Dawn, of course wanted to go home to her adoptive family, but, she was also an attractive, healthy young woman who, quite frankly, after twenty-four weeks with only her section sister's smelly feet and halitosis for company, she wanted a little 'action'. So, with a lustful look in her eye, Dawn said goodbye to her buddies and headed for the wild, night life of Las Vegas.

0=0=0=0

After a 'romantic adventure' in Las Vegas (featuring a very attractive and well developed show girl), Dawn headed back home for a few days before returning to Camp Sanders. Here she spent one night in the transient's block before heading out for Camp Gloriana in the British Isles. Camp Gloriana was named after Queen Elizabeth VIII who'd started the reunification of the British Isles way back in 2688. The camp was situated in an area of Britain called 'East Anglia' and the place was about the flattest piece of real estate Dawn had ever seen; although a couple of Dutch girls claimed that Holland was actually flatter having once been underwater. Dawn don't know about that but it was very flat as far as she was concerned. It was also the perfect place to build airbases; in fact since the time of the earliest heavier than air craft, East Anglia has been home to Britain's air defences and was also the perfect spot for launching attacks on Britain's continental enemies. Another reason she did her advanced Marine training in Britain was that the British Isles contained just about every type of terrain (with the possible exception of desert) known to womankind.

You can shake your head in disbelief that such a small island could contain such a diversity of terrain, but its true. There were mountains, forests, farm land, moors, swamp and lots of urban areas to practice in. Of course the mountains weren't like the Rockies and the forests weren't like the Amazon. But they were all in one small area (less time wasted going from one exercise area to another) and combined with the weird weather that could change from bright, warm sunshine to sleet and snow in about five minutes, it could still kill you if you weren't paying attention.

Dawn and her intake finished their advanced training in their allotted twenty-four weeks. By the time their training was over, of the five-hundred-and-twenty-nine recruits who'd started training at Camp Sanders there were only about one-hundred-and-seventeen left. Eight had been killed in training accidents. Thirty had been given medical discharges due to injuries sustained in training and over two-hundred had been transferred at their own request to other branches of the Alliance Services, while the rest had just washed out and gone home.

Of Dawn's particular friends, one found out that she had a very bad case of claustrophobia, so she couldn't stay in a suit for more than a few minutes before it sent her into a catatonic state. However, she transferred to Star Force where she had a successful career ending her time as a, Chief Petty Officer, Mistress Gunner. Dawn met her a few years later in a bar and they talked over their time spent at Sanders and Gloriana. Even though she was Star Force through-and-through and proud of her service there was something about her that said she was better than the average Star Force file; after all she'd gone through training at Sanders and if that didn't make you just a little 'special' nothing would.

0=0=0=0

Even Marine training eventually ends, although at the time Dawn didn't think she really believed that, she'd started to think that she'd spend the rest of her life in some sort of training limbo. At the end of her twenty-four weeks specialist training, Dawn and her newly minted Marine sisters each got forty-eight hours local leave, which Dawn spent with her buddies in New London seeing the sights during the day and partying in the local clubs at night. However, all too soon her forty-eight hour pass was up and she had to report to London Space Port in the Thames Estuary along with all her hungover friends. From the space port their caught the shuttle up to Gateway Station. Here they settled down in the temporary barracks in the Alliance part of the station to wait for their new assignments to come up and for them to ship out.

0=0=0=0

It was after Dawn's last really close buddy had shipped out on the Terran Alliance Brigade Transport, Erika Natusyoujo and she was feeling a little sorry for herself and lonely because the last of her friends from BMT had gone. One night Dawn was in the Rim Bar looking out of one of the big picture windows, watching Earth spin slowly by and trying to pick out where Sunnidee was, she wondered what the morning would bring her; Dawn was to report aboard the Terran Alliance Battalion Assault Ship, TASS Sarah Maitland were her new life as a Marine would truly begin.

0=0=0=0


	3. Chapter 3

**Gateway Station.**

After a good breakfast in the cookhouse attached to the Alliance barracks, Dawn packed away all her kit and her few personal belongings into her kitbag and headed on up to the docking ring. Walking along the long, curving corridor she looked out at the starships docked at Gateway and tried not to stare like a hick from Hicksville. The 'Sarah Maitland' turned out to be one of the new assault transports, they were much bigger and more capable than the older type of vessel. They could also carried more supplies so they could stay on patrol for longer. They were much more heavily armed; four main turrets with three twelve inch mass drivers each, six multiple twenty-four inch missile launchers and a host of secondary and point defence weapons. The heavier armament meant that if her Marine force got into a situation they couldn't handle, the Sarah Maitland could get them out of it; she also carried sixteen shuttles each capable of carrying a Marine platoon, which gave her enough capacity to land her Marine force in one drop.

Crew quarters were bigger and better than in the older ships while naval crew numbers were held down to two-hundred-and-forty-eight only fifty more than on the previous class of ships. After reading the notes on her wrist computer, Dawn discovered that the Sarah Maitland had already been on one long patrol where she and her Marine detachment had seen some heavy duty action. The Marines aboard had lost a lot of people when they'd tangled with an unexpectedly large and well equipped force of pirates and demons and Dawn was being sent to replace one of those dead Marines. Eventually she made it to the Sarah Maitland's docking tube where she found two more young Marines straight out of BMT. One girl Dawn recognised slightly, she'd been in a different company from her back in Sanders, the other girl she'd never seen before as she'd done her training at Camp Wagner in the Greater German Republic.

“Hi!” Dawn smiled as she dumped her kit bag on the deck and offered her hand to the closest of the two girls, “Dawn Summers, you call me Dawn, Dawnster or Dawnie, but never 'Kid'.”

“Kate, Kate Holburn, I'm from LA but like I'm totally sure you'll get to like me despite that,” the girl grinned as she took Dawn's hand and shook it; she was about Dawn's height with a pretty oval face and seemed to be just as nervous about joining the Maitland as Dawn was.

“Carol Salazar,” the other girl shook Dawn's hand firmly after Kate had finished with it; she was a short, stocky Mexican girl, who, to be perfectly honest, had the sort of face that only a mother could love, “I come from some place in Mexico that no one's ever heard of, so, nice to meet you Dawn.”

“Yeah,” Dawn beamed already feeling comfortable in the company of these two girls, “I hope they put us in the same section.”

“Totally,” Kate agreed, “no way do I wanna be the lone boot in a section of vets.”

“Okay,” Dawn looked at my wrist computer and saw that it was one minute before ten-hundred hours, “shall we go aboard?”

“Roger that,” Dawn's two new friends chorused.

Picking up their kit bags they stepped into the elevator that would take them up to the Maitland's main airlock, the journey took no more than ten seconds but it felt like a life time. Eventually the lift door slid open silently and they found themselves staring into the Maitland's main airlock.

“Abandon all hope she who enters here,” Kate muttered under her breath as they walked out of the lift and into the airlock. 

Coming to a halt they all saluted the Terran Alliance flag that hung on the bulkhead facing the outer airlock door, next they turned smartly to the right, and facing 'forward' they saluted the ships name plaque; Dawn reminded myself to check out who 'Sarah Maitland' had been. Next they presented their orders cards to the Marine lance corporal on duty at the airlock. Giving them her, no doubt, best disdainful look the Marine slipped the cards one by one into the reader she'd taken from her belt. As usual she didn't look impressed, Dawn was getting used to this kind of reaction from all the veteran Marines that she'd come into contact with.

“Okay,” the Lance Corporal looked at the newbies as if they were the lowest forms of life in the galaxy, “you managed to get to the right place at the right time, so I suppose I better let you aboard,” she pointed to a spot on the deck, “Stand there and don't talk or move, I'll find someone to take you off my hands.”

Getting the distinct feeling that they weren't exactly welcome, Dawn watched as, Lance Corporal Tanner spoke quietly into the comms unit on the bulkhead wall behind her, while the three newbies exchanged worried glances. Moments latter another Lance Corporal walked down the companion way into the air lock where she held a whispered conversation with Tanner.

“Okay Pat, I'll take it from here...” she said as she turned to look at Dawn and her friends, once again it was fairly obvious from the look on the corporal's face that she didn't like what she saw.

“Boots,” Riko almost spat the word out in disgust, “Okay, listen up, you are now, 1st Section, 2nd Platoon, 'A' Company, 1st Battalion, 69th Regiment, 3rd Marine Division...and you are _all_ there is of 1st section and I'm Lance Corporal Riko Sengupta your section leader.” Riko paused to give each boot a penetrating look, “I will not be ya big sister, neither will I be ya friend and I will never be your mama...but I will be your worst nightmare if ya screw up, roger that so far?”

0=0=0=0

Lance Corporal Riko Sengupta was not a happy Marine, she'd pleaded, even begged Sergeant Major Bailey (her Company Sergeant-Major) not to assign the boots to her section. However, the Sergeant Major had pointed out, fairly reasonably, that if Sengupta didn't accept the boots into first section there wouldn't be a first section. The Sergeant-Major had already been forced to shift everyone around in second platoon using any spare bodies she could find to fill up the gaps left in the TOE by their last mission; as far as she was concerned the three new boots were a gift from The Goddess. She didn't want to move anyone again, it would disrupt unit cohesion and with the Maitland expected to go out on patrol again in the next few days, she wanted the sections to have more time to bond and heal after the casualties caused during their last patrol.

The Maitland's last tour had been punishing for the battalion, they'd lost a lot of women in a series of vicious combats against heavily armed pirate forces and their demonic allies. But the unit had always fought through to the end of their mission, then they'd licked their wounds and come back for more. The last tour had been particularly hard on Riko Sengupta, she'd had her entire section wiped out on the last raid of the patrol. The battalion had landed on some dust bowl of a planet (demons seemed to prefer arid planets) only to find more demons than Star Force Intelligence had guestimated. Despite the heavy demon presence the Marines had sealed up the demon's holes and gassed them back to hell. It was only when the shuttles had gone down to pick up the battalion that disaster had struck. The shuttle picking up first section had, by some almost impossible stroke of bad luck, set down on a demon, nuclear landmine. The shuttle and all of first section (except for the then Marine Sengupta) had been turned into radioactive dust in the blink of an eye.

Riko had been aboard the Maitland when her section had been wiped out, she'd had a fever and the ship's Medical Officer had marked her 'unfit' for combat. Riko had tried to explain that it was only a cold, but the ship's doctor was adamant. It maybe 'just a cold' to her, but Riko was running a temperature and she'd be going nowhere until she was back to full fitness. The last time Riko had seen her section was after they'd put on their body suits and were heading for the arming room. They'd joked that they'd bring back a couple of demons for her and she was not to wait up for them as they'd probably be late. As it turned out they were terminally 'late' and never came back.

This left Riko feeling lonely and guilty. All her friends, all the people that were important to her were just so much radioactive dust blowing in the wind of a desert world, without even a memorial stone to mark their passing. The guilt she felt was because she thought that had she been there with them, she might have noticed something, seen something that would warn them of the impending disaster. That somehow she might have been able to prevent the deaths of her friends, her 'family'. Failing that, she could have died with them and not have to feel like her heart had been torn from her chest and she'd been left like a mere shadow of the woman she'd once been.

0=0=0=0

Following their new section leader through the maze of passageways that was the TASS Maitland, Dawn got the distinct impression, mainly from Corporal Sengupta's first words but also from the looks she and her buddies were getting that they weren't exactly welcome. Of course she realised that newbies were always likely to be treated with disdain for the first couple of weeks after joining a new unit. But that usually passed after people started to see them as people and not just 'Boots'. What Dawn was picking up on here was something more than the usual closing of ranks against the outsider; this was something that went far deeper.

After what felt like a major trek up the side of a mountain, these battalion transports were big, bigger than some capital ships. In fact and although Dawn didn't know this, the Maitland was about the same size as a Nimitz class aircraft carrier from her own time. They had to be to carry all the supplies and equipment needed to support a Marine Battalion in combat and only have to return to base for more supplies after two or three missions. The inhabited area of the transport took up the first twenty-five percent of the ship's length and went from the keel to the bridge a distance that contained twelve full decks plus a few mezzanine decks. Apart from six cargo lifts, if you wanted to go from the main airlock to Marine country you had to climb a lot of ladders. In this case not only did Dawn and her buddies have to carry all their personnel kit they also had to keep up with Corporal Sengupta who was setting a punishing pace.

Eventually and just before exhaustion set in, the new first section arrived in their section bay. Climbing through the hatch from the corridor, Dawn saw that the compartment was about the size of two cargo containers. There were three pairs of bunks, one pair on the inboard side and two on the outboard side. There were lockers and drawers for their uniforms and other kit; Dawn knew that in the bunks themselves there would be a small safe for anything personal a Marine might have, along with a computer screen and a reading light plus the environmental controls for the 'rack'.

The bay had a common area by the hatch with seats, a table, a holo-projector and entertainment unit. At the far end of the bay was a door that led to the fresher so you didn't have to stumble up and down ladders and companion ways if you needed to pee in the middle of the night. The walls of the bay were white, as was almost everything else in the compartment. However, Dawn noticed that there were marks on the walls to show where the previous occupants had stuck pictures to the bulkheads in an effort to break up the bleak whiteness of their home.

“Okay...” Riko turned to face the boots and just for a moment she didn't see the three nervous looking newbies; instead she saw her old bunkies who starred at her accusingly for letting these interlopers into their space.

“Corporal?” Dawn said after the silence began to stretch to embarrassing lengths; her new section leader appeared to be starring at nothing.

“What?” Riko shook her head trying to clear it of the visions of her old section being incinerated by some crazy demon's nuke.

“You said 'okay' and then stopped talking,” Dawn pointed out quietly.

“What?” Riko repeated to give herself time to remember what she was going to say, “Okay, you take the bunks nearest the hatch, right...?”

Okay, Dawn thought as she heaved her kit bag up onto the top bunk of the outboard set of racks, there was something weird going on here and she'd love to know what it was. This was something more than just the usual standoffishness shown to boots this was something darker. Catching the look that Kate Holburn was giving her, Dawn realised that she wasn't the only one to have noticed that something was wrong, she shrugged before turning to face Corporal Sengupta again.

“Right,” Riko had her imagination under control now, her old section had vanished leaving just the boots, “this is how its gonna be...” she took a deep breath as she remembered what the Sergeant-Major had told her, “...first; ship board jobs. You're responsible for cleaning the laundry room. You _will_ clean said compartment between zero-nine-hundred hours and eleven-hundred hours daily and without fail. You will also be responsible for checking the compartment every two hours there after. When you're not doing that you will be training under me or another NCO either in the gym or in the sims.”

Dawn, Kate and Carol exchanged looks, this sounded almost as bad as Boot training. Listening as Corporal Sengupta explained about their other ship board duties, Dawn began to wonder if she could get a transfer or maybe, with a little luck, get scragged on her first mission and get out of this 'chicken-shit outfit'. 

“...and finally, personnel relationships,” Riko saw that that had got the boot's attention, “if in the unlikely event that someone wants to have sex with any of you slack bellied, excuses for Marines, and believe me that's so very unlikely to happen. You _will_ keep it discreet and you will _not_ rub it in anyone's face...”

At this point Kate snickered and Dawn had to fight to keep her face straight, she couldn't see what Carol was doing but she could hear her trying not to choke too loudly.

“Also,” Riko continued, “if any of you man-fuckers decide to go into the sex business the Captain and the Sergeant-Major will come down on you like a planet killer...so, as long as you follow those rules you can rub your fannies* up against anyone you like,” Riko continued, “But, like I say, in your cases that's real unlikely to happen.” Riko paused for a moment to let that sink in, “Okay, I'm outta here you've got thirty minutes to get your kit squared away then I'll be back to show you losers around the ship...so move it people!”

Rushing for the hatch, Riko climbed out into the corridor and rested her back against the bulkhead as she tried to catch her breath and stop her heart from beating so wildly. Taking a deep breath she pushed herself away from the wall and headed off in the direction of the galley and a cup of coffee.

0=0=0=0

“What is her problem?” Carol Salazar was the first to speak after Riko had left the bay.

“Way to make us feel welcome, much,” Kate added as she emptied out her kit bag onto her rack and started to stow her gear away in her locker.

“Yeah,” Dawn agreed as she began to square away her own kit, “what's wrong with her, she got a demon up her ass or something?”

“Male or female?” Carol asked straight faced.

“Definitely a male,” Dawn replied, “a female demon could never make her act like such a complete and utter bitch.”

“Never know it might be a 'Queen demon',” Kate suggested with a smirk.

“If it is,” Carol signed, “we're in deeeeep shit!”

“So what do you think of the 'fraternisation' rules?” Dawn decided it was time to change the subject, “Personally and meaning no disrespect to you girls I'd rather deal with it myself...for now.”

“Yeah,” Carol nodded, “I think I'm with Dawn on that and keep it to myself for now.”

“Oh I'm going with you girls,” Kate added her five cents worth, “I'm gonna deal with business myself, but if I get a good offer, I might have to rethink that.”

“Good...” Dawn gave a relieved sigh, it was a good idea to find out what everyone's sexual orientation was when you first moved in together, that way there'd be no excuses for any 'misunderstandings' “...now we've got that totally out of the way has anyone else thought it odd that we're all there is of first section?”

“What I hear,” Carol turned around to face her bunkies, “the battalion got real chewed up on their last mission.”

“Oh great!” Dawn slumped against her rack, “Like not only are we boots, but we're boots replacing Marines who got totally killed.”

“Probably explains why Corporal Bitch is being such a...?” Kate was lost for words for a moment.

“Bitch?” Dawn suggested.

“Yeah, right,” Kate grinned, “that's the word I was totally looking for, 'bitch'!”

“Hey ladies,” Carol went back to arranging her kit in her locker, “we better get on the ready line before Corporal Bitch comes back and puts us all on report or something.”

0=0=0=0

The next few days, as the Maitland made her way out of the Sol system, was a whirlwind of being fitted for their armoured suits and issued their personnel weapons plus all the other combat related equipment they'd be responsible for. In between that and doing their shipboard work, they all had interviews with Captain Marvin their company C/O, Sergeant-Major Bailey, the company Sergeant-Major and Sergeant Tracepurcel their Platoon Sergeant.

While all this was going on Corporal Sengupta rode Dawn and her buddies unmercifully. Nothing ever seemed to be quite good enough for her and they seemed to spend all there off hours pulling extra duties. However, even Sengupta couldn't stop them from taking a break for meals. During these blissful periods of peace, Dawn, Kate and Carol found out a little of what was bugging Sengupta. The majority of the Marines in 'A' Company seemed okay, yes they hazed the new Boots but it was nothing malicious or bullying, it was just their way of greeting boots. It would have been the same in any unit, in fact some of the veteran Marines were already beginning to mutter that Sengupta was being overly tough on the newbies.

Be that as it may, Dawn learnt by a mixture of listening quietly when no one thought she was around and by asking some seemingly innocent questions about the battalion's combat record and what had happened on the last patrol. How Sengupta's entire section had been KIA-ed. Strangely, Dawn could understand how this could mess her section leader up. After all she'd been a mess for several weeks after arriving from the past, but she'd had good people around to help her through it. In a perfect world Riko would have been sent for help at a hospital on Refuge (Star Force's largest base, bigger even than any on Earth). There she'd be put back together before being posted to a new unit.

Unfortunately, with pirate and demonic activity increasing, the Marines just couldn't afford to have experienced junior NCOs taken out of the line for six months. This left Riko to deal with it herself; unfortunately she was dealing with it by beating on Dawn and her buddies. Sometimes literally, but Riko was always careful to make any actual injuries look like accidents due to unarmed combat instruction. From her first training period, Dawn had realised that even working together Kate, Carol and herself could never take Sengupta down. Riko was fast and strong, however, she was far from muscle bound. Under other circumstances Dawn had decided that she wouldn't mind sleeping with her, Riko was lithe and extremely attractive. But she was still a bitch. One evening when the three new Marines were in the section bay together and their section leader was, as usual, nowhere to be seen, Dawn explained what she was going to do.

“Look girls,” Dawn sat in the common area facing her friends, “I don't know about you but I'm sick of Corporal Bitch treating us like crap.”

“Yeah, but what can we do about it?” Carol wanted to know.

“Yeah,” Kate nodded, “its not like we can go to the Sierra-Maria without the Bitch's permission.”

“And I doubt we could frag her an' get away with it,” Carol pointed out, “I don't wanna dance a 'Dannie Deever'** because of her.”

“Look, I think we can handle this ourselves,” Dawn explained, “at least I can and no one needs to be fragged or dance a 'Dannie Deever' and the S-M doesn't need to know anything.”

“So what you gonna do,” Carol asked intrigued, “kill her while she's asleep?”

“I'm going to talk to her,” Dawn replied with a determined look on her face.

“WHAT!?”

0=0=0=0

*: Fanny: This is the English meaning of the word which is 180 degrees different from the American meaning of the word.

**: 'Danny Deever'; R Kipling.

“For they're hangin' Danny Deever, you can hear the Dead March play  
The regiment's in 'ollow square, they're hangin' 'im today;   
They've taken of his buttons off an' cut his stripes away,   
An' they're hangin' Danny Deever in the mornin'.”


	4. Chapter 4

Dawn's plans to 'talk' to Riko about her attitude had to be put on hold when the Maitland received new orders the following day. It was early in the afternoon, just after lunch in fact and Dawn was checking that the laundry was still clean and tidy. It was as she was checking one of the clothes driers that she heard the warning tone for new orders coming over the ship's PA system. This meant that she had about sixty minutes to finish what she was doing and get to the gym for the initial briefing. The thought suddenly hit Dawn that new orders probably meant combat. Talking a deep breath she shook her head, it was no use worrying about it she knew she'd have to go into combat one day, she'd known the risks when she'd enlisted. 

It was only after these thoughts had entered her mind that Dawn noticed that her hands were shaking. Not a lot, but it made her hesitate when she tried to press her thumb against the log that confirmed the time at which she'd checked the laundry room. What if someone noticed, she found herself asking, what if she couldn't climb into the shuttle, what if she couldn't even get into her suit? Giving a brittle laugh, Dawn told herself it was just nerves, she'd be fine and once she'd got a pirate or demon under the aiming pipper of her head up display she'd have no problem blasting it back to hell. Walking over to a wash basins, Dawn looked at herself in the mirror above the sink. As she caught sight of her reflection, she told herself that she didn't look scared. What she was experiencing was likely nothing more than a case of pre-combat nerves, she'd be fine. Pausing for a moment to wash her face with a little cold water, Dawn dried herself off and headed out of the laundry and back to her section bay. All the time telling herself that everything would be fine, that Kate and Carol were probably experiencing the same symptoms. Strangely, telling herself that everything would be fine didn't seem to stop her hands from shaking.

0=0=0=0

“Sergeant-Major,” Riko called as she jogged down the passageway after the woman in question.

For just a moment Sergeant-Major Bailey considered pretending not to have heard Riko and heading on down the ladder to the next deck where she could probably lose her in the maze of corridors. But she didn't, she was too much of a responsible NCO to do that. Instead she stopped and turned to face the younger woman.

“What can I do for you Riko?” Bailey asked; she frowned as she noticed the worried look on Riko's face, she'd been seeing that same look far too often lately.

“This is combat right?” Riko asked breathlessly.

“Looks like,” Bailey tried to keep a neutral expression on her face but what she was seeing made her worried.

Before Riko's entire section had been scragged, Riko had always been pretty relaxed about going into combat. Whatever her real feeling might have been on the inside she'd always given the impression that going into combat didn't worry her any more than it did any other Marine. But now Bailey wasn't so sure, in a perfect universe, Riko would have gone back to Refuge for extended R&R and a little therapy. Afterwards she'd be assigned to a new unit where she wouldn't be reminded of her dead friends everyday and night. But this wasn't a 'perfect universe', there was an almost continual, low level war going on against the pirates and their demon friends. Marines with Riko's experience were needed in combat not sitting in a bar or lying on her back getting her brains screwed out by some sex therapist; these days sex was seen as an important part of the healing process.

“Yeah, like that's cool, but what about the Boots?” Riko asked.

“What about them?” Bailey lifted an eyebrow inviting Riko to explain.

“Look, Sergeant-Major,” Riko began breathlessly, “they're hardly combat ready and I'm not happy with them watching my back.”

“Hold on there Riko,” Bailey forced a laugh and almost managed to sound as if she meant it, “are you suggesting that I leave three perfectly good, trained Marines on the Maitland while the rest of us are planet side buckling for our dust?”

“Erm, yeah,” Riko admitted slowly, “I suppose I am, look Sergeant-Major,” Riko hardly noticed the tone of pleading that had entered her voice, “They're not ready, they're like babies you wouldn't send kids into combat would ya?”

“No I wouldn't,” Bailey shook her head, “but they're not kids they're trained Marines so, failing being down checked by the doc they'll be jumping with the rest of us...”

“But they'll die!” the words burst from Riko's mouth.

“No they won't,” Bailey shook her head, he was now officially worried about Riko, she'd never seen her act like this before; again she wished he could leave Riko on the bench for this mission, but there were still too many holes in the company TOE for her to leave an experienced junior NCO behind. “Look Riko I know what's eating you and I sympathise, but you and your girls are going to jump. Anyway it won't be so bad,” Bailey smiled reassuringly, “as you've not got a full section you'll be with me an' the Captain.”

“Oh,” Riko felt as if she couldn't breath, that she was going to faint and she'd not fainted since she was twelve, “yeah that's okay,” she smiled unconvincingly, “if we're around you an' the Captain, even the Boots can't screw that up...right?”

“That's what I like to hear,” Bailey smiled and placed a sisterly hand on Riko's shoulder, “now why don't you stop worrying and go see to your section?”

“Sure thing Sergeant-Major,” Riko replied flatly as she stood there looking completely defeated, “okay, I'm on the ready line.”

Watching Riko walk away, Bailey shook her head sadly, if Riko screwed up it'd be a Section Eight for her and she'd have no choice but to send her back to Refuge for treatment and a probable medical discharge. In the mean time she'd watch her and try to make sure that she didn't get herself or anyone else killed.

0=0=0=0

Arriving back at the section bay, Dawn found that her hands were still shaking. Climbing through the hatch she saw that Kate and Carol were already changing into their everyday khakis.

“Hey, Dawnie!” Kate called happily as she slipped into her uniform skirt, “did y'hear? We're going to burn some demons, totally cool, right?”

“Great!” Dawn forced herself to sound positive, what if she froze the first time she saw a demon, what if she froze up and got everyone killed?

“We're gonna really smear those spawn,” Carol joined in with the 'Demon Hate', “I'm ready for some payback!”

“Sure,” Dawn nodded as she started to take off her coveralls, “payback, I'm really gonna show those demons what for...”

Oh Goddess, Dawn cried internally, her two closest friends...scrub that her _only_ friends, both sounded like they were willing to take on all the hell spawn in the galaxy single handed. They didn't sound scared or worried about what might happen, they just wanted to toast the big bads. But she wasn't so sure, perhaps she should refuse to get into the shuttle and get herself kicked out, go back to Earth and...and what? If she got kicked out, what would she do on Earth? The thought of being a complete failure eventually spurred Dawn into getting changed and heading for the gym and the initial briefing.

0=0=0=0

“TEN-HUT!” Sergeant-Major Bailey called from over by the door to the gym; half a second later Captain Marvin marched into the gym and headed for the lectern at the opposite end of the compartment as she passed the lines of Marines standing at attention.

“Be seated, ladies,” Captain Marvin said as she stood behind the lectern, she waited for everyone to sit down and get comfortable before clicking the control that would bring up the first hologram. “This is our target,” a huge hologram of a blue and white planet appeared over to her right, “imaginatively known as, RJ-1717-4. Its an Earth type planet which has a slightly warmer than average temperature than Earth and it was taken over by a gang of pirates and demons about six months ago.”

The Captain pressed another control. The clouds cleared from the holographic planet to show the continents and oceans of RJ-1717-4 as it spun slowly on its axis.

“As you can she about eighty percent of the planet's surface is ocean, particularly shallow, warm oceans and most of the land mass is covered in warm, wet, jungle with only small ice caps at the poles. There are two medium sized continents both in the northern hemisphere, the rest of the land mass is split between the thousands of islands spread across the planet's seas. There are no moons so tides are hardly significant. The atmosphere is breathable and gravity is within a few points of Earth's. Our job is to go down and kick the squatters off the planet.”

There were eager mutterings from that part of the company that hadn't seen much combat, the company's veterans however kept quiet, as did Dawn.

“The Alliance surveyed RJ-1717-4 about ten years ago but didn't open it up for colonisation,” Captain Marvin continued. “so you're probably wondering why we're interested in it now...apart from there being squatters on it. You're also probably wondering why we don't just let the Navy pound the spawn and their pirate whores to dust and move on. Well I'll tell you why...” the Captain paused for a moment or two, “...the Navy has good intelligence that there are Alliance hostages down on RJ-1717-4...”

There was a sound like angry bees buzzing as this piece of information struck home.

“..there is also a semi-sentient species on the planet and Star Force and the Corps both feel that it would be irresponsible to just bombard the hell-spawn without at least trying to spare the indigenous population from the effects of a war that has nothing to do with them. So far it looks as if the spawn have left the locals alone too. If you're interested the locals are descended from tree dwelling dinosaur proto-bird creatures and they've advanced to a society similar in technology to the early stone-age on Earth.”

“The hell-spawn have set up here on the northern tip of the larger of the two continents,” the hologram shifted to show the target area as the Captain continued her presentation, “where they're mining some strategically important minerals used in starship construction. Our job will be to destroy the enemy garrison, the workers and any industrial facilities we might find while at the same time rescuing any hostages. Pirate-demon force levels are said to be 'high' but they don't seem to have set up much in the way of planetary defences, however we've been told to watch out for heavy anti-air fire, which is why we won't be landing on the target itself...its also why this is going to be a job for the entire battalion.”

Sitting on a bench with Kate and Carol, Dawn didn't know where Corporal Sengupta was, she listened as the Captain outlined the plan of attack and her hands started to shake so violently she was sure someone would notice, strangely no one did. The strike force would land in the jungle about five miles away from the pirate/demon base. This would hopefully reduce their casualties from enemy anti-air fire. It was also hoped that the enemy would come into the jungle and attack the Marines before they got to the base area. In the jungle the Marines would have the advantage. It had been noted that demons generally preferred dry, arid worlds much like their home worlds. They fought best in desert type terrain and they would not be at home fighting in thick vegetation. However, each Marine could expect to be outnumbered by about five to one in fighters there would also be an unknown number of enemy techs and workers to contend with. 

Towards the end of the briefing Captain Marvin explained that the full operational plan and each individual Marine's part in it would be downloaded into their brains while they slept tonight so that when they woke up in the morning everyone would know their part in the plan to liberate RJ-1717-4 from the hell spawn and hopefully leave the bird-osaurs to develop at their own pace. It was only then that the Captain dropped her verbal nuke. The assault on RJ-1717-4 would take place in exactly sixteen hours. They'd have less than six hours to get their combat equipment ready because the Captain wanted everyone to get a good ten hours sleep before the jump. This in effect actually meant that they only had four hours to get themselves ready because it would take about two hours to actually prep for the assault. By the time the Captain had finished the shakes had migrated from Dawn's hands to her legs. When she stood to attention as Captain Marvin left the gym she thought she was going to collapse.

0=0=0=0

Somehow they made all the preparations for the assault in the time allotted, they even had time to have a good unhurried meal before turning in for the night. Corporal Sengupta had reappeared with no explanation as to where she'd been and proceeded to get in everyone's face while they were trying to check out their suits and weapons. Eventually Sergeant-Major Bailey must have noticed because she sent Riko off to help out in the armoury, so Dawn, Kate and Carol could get their suits warmed up under the watchful eye of Sergeant Hoffmann the company's suit tech.

After they'd eaten, the company went back to its section bays and turned in for ten hours of induced sleep while the units built into their racks downloaded the mission plans into their minds while they slept. The memories the downloads made were only short term ones, they'd soon fade and be 'overwritten' by each Marine's actual memories of the mission. It wasn't so different than the way most teenagers revised for tests at school. 

About half way through the 'night' Dawn awoke to find she really needed to pee, climbing out of her rack she made her way to the fresher at the end of the bay without waking up any of her buddies. It was on her way back to her bunk that she noticed the sound of sobbing coming from the semi-private, section leader's alcove.

“Hello?” Dawn called softly; as far as she knew there should only be one person in the alcove and that was L/Cpl Sengupta, “Corporal Sengupta, are you okay in there?”

“Get lost Boot!” came the reply from out of the darkness of the Assistant section Leader's bunk.

Suddenly the anger bubbled up in Dawn's chest, all she'd done was to ask after L/Cpl Bitch's well being and she'd basically had her head bitten off!

“What _is_ your malfunction!?” Dawn demanded as she tried to imagine how her sister would have dealt with this situation, throwing caution to the wind she jumped in with both feet, “You get off on beating on boots, huh? Does it make you feel tough or something...?”

“I'm warning you Boot...” Riko pushed herself up into a sitting position but didn't swing herself out of her rack.

“Yeah, you're warning me,” Dawn snapped back, “but what ya gonna do? Beat me up or something? Yeah that'll look good when the Sergeant-Major inspects us tomorrow...or maybe that's what you want...”

“Y'don't know nothin' Boot,” Riko tried to ignored Dawn, but Dawn was not going to be ignored she was mightily pissed off.

“Yeah, well maybe I don't know what its like to have my entire section KIA-ed,” Dawn stood over Riko's bunk with her hands on her hips, “Well, boohoo! You had your section wiped out, GET OVER IT! I had my entire life KIA-ed, I woke up with no recollection of my life...how do you think that felt?” Dawn could sound pretty convincing about her made-up life prior to being found by the police, “You know nothing about loss, you don't know what it feels like to have everything...and I mean _everything_ , you've ever loved taken from you, so shape up and start acting like a real NCO and not like a brat that's had her toys taken away!”

With that Dawn turned away and headed for her rack half expecting to be brought to the deck by an angry Corporal Sengupta. Reaching her bunk she sensed Kate move in the lower bunk.

“Way to go, Dawnie!” she whispered in the dark.

“We've got-cha back,” Carol called quietly from her rack.

As Dawn climbed into her bunk she noticed that her shakes had completely gone away.

0=0=0=0


	5. Chapter 5

A Marine Battalion, like the 69th was normally made up of four companies, three rifle companies (A, B, and C) and one Command and Support company. The Command and Support company contained a mortar platoon of four 82mm automatic mortars. An air defence platoon of four gun/missile systems and a Command Platoon which was organised like a normal rifle platoon and contained the battalion command group. Finally there was a small Admin platoon that contained the battalion's clerks, Battalion Quartermistress Sergeant, the Battalion Sergeant-Major, Medical Officer and medical personnel.

A company, just like a battalion, was split into four platoons, three rifle platoon and a command and support platoon. The company command platoon contained the company commander (normally a Captain), the Company Sergeant-Major, a small staff of four communications trained marines, a mortar section of two 82mm automatic mortars and a security section.

A rifle platoon consisted of three rifle sections of eight Marines, and a command section containing the platoon leader (usually a Lieutenant), the Platoon Sergeant, a guided missile team and a General Purpose Multi-barrelled Machine Gun team. A section, was usually commanded by a corporal with a Lance Corporal as second in command, contained eight Marines split into two 'fire teams' of four, each armed with three M-TAR-25 combat rifles and one M182A5 Light Assault Gun.

Under normal tactical situations a rifle platoon would be split into two unequal groups; the support group commanded by the platoon sergeant and containing the GPMMG team and the GM team plus one section. The other group would be the 'Assault Group' commanded by the platoon leader and the two remaining sections.

Because of loses from previous missions which hadn't been made up with replacements, Dawn's platoon consisted of only two full strength rifle sections, her own fire team, the platoon sergeant (Sergeant Tracepurcel) and the GPMMG team. For this mission, Dawn's team would be used as scouts under Company Sergeant-Major Bailey's direction, while the rest of the platoon would form the company reserve.

0=0=0=0

When Dawn finally got to jump out of her Tactical Troop Assault Shuttle over the objective she'd be weighed down with enough weapons and armour to take on an infantry platoon from her own time single handedly. First and probably most importantly she'd be wearing her Mk 5A Personnel Combat Armour Suit. The Mk 5A PCAS, made her stronger (so she could carry more weapons and ammunition) faster (in her suit she'd be able to fly with the assistance of her Grav Pack) plus it would generally keep her alive long enough to let the enemy regret ever seeing her. Her suit didn't make her invulnerable, but it did make her harder to kill and protected her from the effects of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, it also acted as a vacuum suit for space side operations. 

Under her armour she would wear a body suit impregnated with millions upon millions of nannites which ate her body hair and any dead skin, so she wouldn't need to scratch, they also ate any body waste so there was no need for any uncomfortable and complicated plumbing. To prevent the nannites from escaping and causing infestations they were designed to die after seventy-two hours or thirty seconds after leaving the body suit. Her armour also contained a water recycling unit (more nannites) and high energy food in the form of an oatmeal like substance that could be sucked through a pipe.

Her helmet contained her comms unit, a short range sensor suite, external microphones which would allow her to hear what was going on outside her suit and a loudspeaker so she could talk to anyone not on her comms net. The face plate of her helmet had a Head Up Display that would project a map of her immediate surroundings and sighting information for all her weapons.

Because of her armoured suit, Dawn would be able to carry large amounts of death and destruction around with her, much more than if she was walking around without her suit on. Her main weapon was her M-TAR-25 Combat Rifle and the three hundred rounds of ammunition in six fifty round magazines. Next came her Hand Flamer; a miniature flame thrower which could shoot a stream of fire thirty metres, each of the two fuel canisters she carried gave her enough fuel for thirty seconds of flame. She'd also carry six egg sized HE grenades and a dispenser containing two hundred 'Fire Pills', another incendiary weapon that could be thrown by the handful at a target. Finally she'd carry two Disposable Rocket Launchers with HE warheads effective against personnel targets, light armour and structures, these had a range of about five hundred yards.

Finally there was her Grav Pack. This used the same technology that starships used to give artificial gravity. The grav unit in the Grav Pack basically made Dawn and all her equipment weightless (but importantly not _massless_. Because she was basically weightless the jump pack need only be fitted with jets powerful enough to alter her direction and push her through the air.

As can be imagined it took a lot of time to train a Marine in the use of all this equipment. While weapons skills could be picked up fairly quickly, there was something of an 'art' to manoeuvring a PCAS which was why almost half of a Marines training was devoted to learning to get the best out of their suits.

0=0=0=0

**'D' Day.**

The shakes didn't start again until the following morning and by the time the company had mustered in the shuttle hanger, Dawn felt like she was going to shake herself apart. One of the medics had checked her out, as she had all the other members of the platoon; she'd noticed Dawn's hands trembling and said it was nothing to worry about, just pre-drop nerves. It was all quite normal and would pass; Dawn didn't know about that, all she knew was she was scared silly.

After Captain Marvin had made a short speech and wished everyone good luck it was time for Dawn to shut her face plate. As she closed down her one last direct connection to the world outside, the shakes really hit home so badly that she felt like she wouldn't be able to move without collapsing onto the deck and have to be taken to sick bay. Somehow she made it to the shuttle. Her platoon's shuttle would be out of the hanger right after the Command and Support Company's shuttles had left so there wouldn't be so much waiting around and time for her nerves to make her feel worse than she did right now.

Climbing clumsily into the shuttle, weighed down with her parachute, grav pack and weapons she let the ships drop crew strap her in. By the time the crew girls had secured her harness Dawn could only move her arms and legs, but the shakes were worse than ever. Finally the shuttle crew closed the troop door at the rear of the cargo bay and she was plunged into a sort of red twilight as the internal lights came on. After what seemed like an interminable wait, Dawn felt the shuttle lurch as it started its short journey out of the Maitland's shuttle bay. After only thirty seconds or so Dawn sensed accelerated as the shuttle headed for RJ-1717-4's atmosphere.

Suddenly Dawn's HUD sprang into life making her cry out in surprise because she thought it was telling her that she and the rest of her platoon were crashing uncontrollably towards the planet surface. Perhaps, she found herself thinking, the pirates and their demonic allies had set up an effective anti-air net after all and they'd been hit by a missile. However, her panicking eyes soon told her that they were in fact on course and would soon be entering atmosphere. The shuttle began to shake as it was buffeted by the upper atmosphere and the internal temperature started to rise a little as the shuttle's skin began to heat up with the friction caused by re-entry. Although the temperature had risen it was still well within the green so Dawn relaxed as she realised she wasn't going to die screaming in agony as she was roasted alive inside the shuttle.

Her HUD told her that the shuttle was on course for the drop zone and if she ever did make it to the surface she'd land within a few hundred yards of her platoon mates. This all assumed that the shuttle wasn't hit by enemy ground fire and everyone wasn’t killed before she'd even jumped from the craft. During training she'd seen demonstrations of various weapons used by non-Alliance forces and what they could do to a woman, even one dressed in armour. It wasn't pleasant and it gave Dawn a whole new raft of things to worry about. 

Before Dawn had stopped worrying about enemy weapons and their effects on poor naked Marines like herself, she found that the troop door had once again been opened so she could see clouds rushing by beneath the shuttle. As if in a daze she released her harness and stood up when Sergeant Tracepurcel gave the order. Hooking up her static line she started to shuffle towards the troop door and the _very_ long drop down to the planet's surface. At the door the shuttle's Load-Mistress stood dressed in her hard suit waiting for the signal that would tell her they were over the drop zone. Once over the drop zone the Load-Mistress would give the Marines the signal to go. Watching the suited woman by the door, Dawn wished she'd joined Star Force instead of the Marines. If she had she’d be sleeping aboard the Maitland tonight instead of lying dead in a big hole in the planet's surface after her chute and grav unit had failed and she'd crashed and died.

However, almost before she realised it, Dawn found herself stepping out onto air and plummeting towards the planet's surface far, far below. Before she'd even started to rip through the insubstantial clouds her ribbon chute opened and dramatically slowed her decent so she could watch as decoys fired from her counter measures unit and fell towards the surface to make a shield between herself and any ground fire that might be directed in her direction.

Forcing herself to look out at this strange new world, Dawn saw lazy daisy chains of light reaching up into the sky. Seeing some of the lights connect with what were hopefully decoys, she saw them explode and blossom into deadly flowers of flame and shrapnel. Ghostly yellow beams also reached up into the sky, when they touched something there would be a bright flash as whatever the beams hit vanished from view.

Watching her HUD, Dawn found that none of her section had been hit but still, from her perspective, it looked like the company was taking a beating. Noticing that she was now moving slowly enough to attract the attention of the enemy gunners, Dawn cut her ribbon chute free, curled up into a ball and dropped like a stone until her altimeter told her she was about eight-hundred feet above the jungle. Opening out into a swan dive, as she'd been taught, she took the time to scan the ground below her. It was all greens and yellows and reds and blues. It was also almost solid jungle, if she hit that too fast, she told herself, she'd end up with at least broken legs. At five-hundred feet Dawn popped her main chute. 

The immense parachute opened out above her making it look as if she was hanging beneath a huge almost invisible jellyfish. It made her feel incredibly vulnerable as if she was hanging in the sky with a great, big, target painted on her armour. The trees below her seemed to be approaching pretty damn fast too; she eventually cut her chute lose, she also jettisoned her reserve chute and powered up her grav pack. Sitting on her grav unit for a moment she hovered and selected an area of jungle without too many trees to set down in.

Coming in for a rather bouncy landing, Dawn discovered that the trees weren't as big of a danger as she'd thought they were. They weren't like terrestrial trees with solid wooden trunks. These were more like the stems of ferns and were easily broken by someone in armour. The ground cover wasn't as bad as it looked from above either. Visibility was anywhere from fifty to one hundred yards. The plant life was generally a lot lower than it had looked from above.

“Hello all one-one call signs, this is one-one, sound off, over!” Corporal Sengupta's voice burst in on Dawn's little world.

“One-One-Alpha, down and safe, over.” Dawn replied, to be honest she might be down but she had no idea whether she was 'safe', there could be a pirate or demon drawing a bead on her right now.

Pulling her rifle from off her back, Dawn ran towards a thicket of giant, bright red flowers and hunkered down behind them as her suit's active camouflage copied her surroundings to make her almost invisible. After scanning the area for threats, she next directed her attention back to her HUD. Checking on the position of Kate, Carol and Corporal Sengupta, she saw that they were all within one hundred yards of her and their icons all glowed green indicating that they were uninjured. Widening her view a little, Dawn picked up on the icons of Captain Marvin and Sergeant-Major Bailey. They were about two-hundred yards to her rear or to her south-west.

“All One-One call signs this is One-One,” once again Riko Sengupta's voice came to Dawn over her comms, “orders from Nine-Actual, we're to scout towards the base in a north-easterly direction and report any enemy activity, roger that so far, over.”

“One-One-Alpha, roger so far over,” Dawn replied and took the time it took for Kate and Carol to reply to call up a map of the area on her HUD.

The terrain was more of the same as she had around her now, the only difference being that there were a few narrow streams running through the jungle.

“One-One, form a skirmish line on me and we'll leap frog forward in one-hundred yard bounds, odds and evens, roger that, over.”

“One-One-Alpha, roger that, over,” Dawn started to move to form a skirmish line on Cpl Sengupta facing in a north-easterly direction, she saw Kate and Carol move into their slots. 

Now in a line two-hundred-and-fifty yards long and facing towards the enemy base, Dawn waited for the word to move.

“One-One, prepare to move...” Cpl Sengupta sounded very business like over the comms with no trace of nervousness in her voice, “...odd numbers...move!”

On her HUD, Dawn could see Sengupta and Carol bounce forward to land one-hundred yards further forward.

“One-one, even numbers...move!”

Dawn and Kate jumped into the air and rode their grav packs one-hundred-and-fifty yards forward only grounding once they were fifty yards ahead of Sengupta's and Carol's positions. Dawn saw her first demon after they'd advanced about one-thousand yards; she was just coming into land when she saw a demon warrior hiding under a huge fern about fifty yards to her left-front.

“DEMONS!” she screamed over her comms as she brought her rifle to bear on the warrior, “CONTACT NOW! DEMONS! DEMONS! AM ENGAGING!!!”

Triggering her rifle, Dawn was grateful to see her bullets rip through the demon's flesh. Relieved to have actually hit something because she'd not really been aiming, Dawn stopped firing when the demon didn't flop about while it was being hit like it was supposed to. Standing there looking at the dead demon, Dawn realised four things; first the demon had already been dead before she'd shot it, second, she'd stopped shaking and third, the demon didn't look like any demon she'd ever seen before, for a start this one had wings. Finally, she realised that she'd wet herself; she could feel the warm wetness around her crotch and down her inner thighs as her suit's nanites moved in to begin the clean up.

“What the hell's goin' on, Summers?” Corporal Sengupta's voice came over the 'squawk-net' as she landed next to Dawn; seeing the dead demon she tensed for a moment as she covered it with her own rifle, only relaxing again when she too realised it was dead. “Good work, Summers,” Sengupta added reluctantly, “but next time use proper radio procedure, okay?”

“Erm, yeah...Corporal,” Dawn decided it was best to come clean, “I didn't kill it, it was already dead...”

“You wot?” Sengupta turned to look at Dawn.

“It was already dead and I panicked and shot it...sorry,” Dawn's helpless shrug was lost under her armour.

“Did y'wet y'self?” Sengupta asked quietly.

“Y-yeah!” Dawn gasped, “How did you know?”

“Did the self same thing first time I was in combat,” Riko admitted.

“You did?” Dawn could scarcely believe her ears.

“Look kid,” Riko posture relaxed a little as she started to move towards the dead demon, “about what you said last night...I've been thinking and you're right, I've been a complete asshole since you girls came aboard...”

“You have?” Dawn replied as she joined Riko in examining the demon.

“No need to agree with me, kid,” Riko growled, “but...I was an asshole and I'm sorry for it. What you said made me realise I wasn't the only one who's lost people...but hey...this doesn't mean we'll be swapping spit in the showers back on the Maitland...” Dawn heard Riko take a deep breath, “...but from now on I'll try to do better, okay?”

“Okay,” Dawn agreed, to be honest she was almost too shocked to say anything else.

“So ya can tell ya buddies not to frag me, okay?”

“Will do, Corporal,” Dawn replied.

“An' call me Riko on the squawk-net.”

“Sure thing...Riko and you can call me Dawn.”

“I was goin' to,” Riko sniggered as she pointed at the demon, “What the hellmouth is that thing?”

“Don't know,” Dawn shrugged after taking a closer look, “not like any demon I've seen before an' I was pretty good at demon recognition in training...I mean those wings can't possibly be big enough for it to fly...

“Yeah, an' that gun,” Riko pointed to the weapon lying next to the dead demon it looked a little like a Terran made assault shotgun, “I've never seen anything quite like it before...I'll call it in while you talk to your buddies on the squawk-net.”

The squawk-net allowed a section to talk privately on their comms without the need to use proper radio procedure and without higher ranks being able to listen in. After talking to Kate and Carol for a minute or two, just long enough to tell them what was going on, Riko came back on the squawk-net with new orders.

“Listen up ladies,” Riko called, “Nine-Actual wants us to advance towards the base and sweep through the jungle looking for more dead demons...of course,” Riko laughed quietly, “we're not to ignore any live ones we see, but you get the idea, okay?”

“Roger that, Corporal,” Kate was the first to answer.

“Got it,” Carol agreed only a second later.

“Okay, get into line and watch that spacing...move!” Riko ordered as she zoomed away from Dawn in a cloud of leaf litter and broken vegetation.

A sweep meant they wouldn't be leap-frogging any more, they'd fly and walk through the jungle in a line watching for any sign of enemy activity. Single or small groups of pirates or demons they'd deal with by themselves. If they bumped into larger groups they'd fall back onto the main body of the company to their rear. On either flank they'd have the battalion scouts, but they were in the lead, they were the point of one of those arrows that you see on the news casts when they're showing an advance. Moving forward in long, slow, low jumps towards where everyone hoped the main enemy force would be, Dawn split her time between looking for demons and trying to keep aligned with Kate on her right and Carol on her left. Riko spent her time whizzing up and down the short line or heading out to a flank seemingly at random.

It was just after Riko had flown behind Dawn and she'd just grounded after her own jump that Dawn got a warning from her proximity alarm, there was movement about one-hundred-and-fifty yards to her front, a lot of movement. Remembering her rather panicky contact report from earlier, she wanted to do better. Staying grounded she worked her way forward trying to get a visual fix on whatever was in front of her.

“Hello, Nine-Actual, this is One-One-Alpha, possible contact one hundred yards north of my location, am observing, over.”

“Nine-Alpha, roger that,” Sergeant-Major Bailey's voice came over Dawn's comms, obviously the Captain had other things to do, “what's it look like, over.”

“One-One-Alpha, I'm not sure,” Dawn replied as she pushed herself through another clump of giant, bright red flowers, “its big, but the jungle's too thick to see and...”

Dawn shut up as her mouth dropped open when she saw what was coming towards her. It was a demon war machine but not like any of the types she'd studied during training. Unlike most demon machines this one was camouflaged, but instead of the usual three tall legs that held the machine about thirty feet above the ground this one had six shorter legs that held the body of the machine about twelve feet above the ground. At the front of its main body just below what was obviously its control compartment were two huge metal claws that ripped the jungle apart allowing the machine to advance through the thick vegetation. On the machine's back was some sort of heavy weapon that tracked from side to side looking for targets. The weapon started to track towards Dawn and she suddenly realised that the demon controlling the machine had found its first victim for the day!

0=0=0=0


	6. Chapter 6

Doctrine clearly stated that if you were faced by a demonic war machine it was best to _do_ something, anything, _now_ rather than wait for the perfect solution to present itself later. Also, if you only had your personnel weapons, it was best to direct your fire at any visible sensor equipment and hope to blind your attacker. This is exactly what Dawn did, placing the aiming pipper of her rifle on the machine's sensor array she squeezed the trigger and watched as her bullets hit home. The impacts made sparks fly and damaged various pieces of casing but appeared not to slow down the insect like machine's advance. Using her grav pack, Dawn bounced to her left a few yards as the demon's weapon tracked towards her position. The demon's weapon fired sending a stream of large calibre slugs at the spot where she'd just been standing. The auto-cannon's shells exploded as they ripped apart a clump of blue flowers that she'd been using as cover. The force of the explosions hit Dawn just as she was coming into land and tumbled her gyros before sending her crashing to the ground.

Rolling upright, Dawn knelt and sent another burst of fire at the war machine. Her bullets sparked against the machine's armour, but otherwise appeared to be having little effect on the machine as its own weapon traversed towards her again spitting fire and destruction as it did so. Letting go of her rifle, Dawn grabbed a grenade from her utility belt and threw it at the demon war machine like she was some sort of powered armoured baseball player. The microphones on the outside of her armour clearly picked up the distinct 'clang!' as the grenade hit the machine. The next thing Dawn knew she was blown off her feet by the blast from the grenade exploding. As she tumbled to the ground once more, she admonished herself for forgetting about blast zones and safety areas, she also realised that she'd not sent a follow up contact report...which was understandable as she was fighting for her life. Standing up again, she tried to power up her grav pack...nothing happened!

“OOOOOOOOH CRAP!” Dawn cried as she dodged the next hail of shells from the demon's main armament as she fired back, again to little effect.

“Dawn? Dawn? Are you okay?” it was Kate's voice coming urgently over the squawk-net.

“Help!” Dawn fired again as she moved from tree to tree as the demon destroyed each of her hiding places just seconds after she'd moved, “Big demon machine! I can't kill it!”

“Don't sweat it, kid,” this time Riko's voice came to Dawn's ears, “I'm on my way!”

By now the demon machine was less than twenty yards away from Dawn. Its great, metal pincers snapped in the air as they reached towards her, eager to snuff out her life. The demon's gun tracked towards her, any moment now it would be on target and she'd be reduced to so much strawberry jam as the big, heavy, explosive slugs ripped apart her armour and reduced her to a red smear on the jungle floor. Backing away from the machine Dawn kept firing. The war machine's sensors appeared to be shielded or armoured enough to withstand her attacks, while hits on its body left streaks of bright metal where her bullets had impacted, but otherwise didn't do much damage. In desperation Dawn switched her aim to the machine's front right, knee joint. Keeping moving while keeping her rifle on target, Dawn noticed that the leg's movement became slow and jerky as her hits caused it to malfunction. Unfortunately she didn't have time to press home her attack as the machine's auto-cannon swept towards her and fired.

For an instant, Dawn's lower right leg felt incredibly hot, she rolled left and fired point blank at the demons middle left leg, the leg seized up almost immediately but this still didn't appear to slow the monster machine down by much. One of its great metal snippers swung in and hit her body sending her flying, only her armour saving her from a serious case of death from the glancing blow. Finding herself rolling across the ground, Dawn threw out her arms and brought herself to a halt. Looking up she saw the demon machine coming at her, it was almost standing over her now. It might not be able to bring its main armament to bear but it could still use its powerful claws to rip her apart or crush her in their metal grip. Lying there looking up at the metal monster, Dawn desperately tried to think of something else to do. Escape wasn't an option, if she stood up the gun could bear on her and she'd be blasted to smitheries in an instant. Grabbing a couple of grenades, Dawn was just about to pull the pins when she heard the most beautiful sound in all the universe.

“FIRE IN THE HOLE!”

A rocket streaked in from the right and hit the war machine, penetrated its armour and causing it to explode. Rolling onto her front, Dawn placed her hands and arms over her head in a purely instinctive move to protect herself from the exploding machine. Flames engulfed her as pieces of demon war machine bounced about the jungle knocking down flowers and ferns indiscriminately. she must have passed out because the next thing she knew someone was shaking her shoulder.

“Just five more minutes mom,” Dawn groaned as she slowly returned to consciousness. 

“I told you, I ain't ya ma',” Riko's voice registered on Dawn's addled mind, “you okay kid?”

“Oooh,” Dawn groaned as she rolled over to lie on her back for a moment, “apart from nearly dying you mean?”

“Something like that,” Riko laughed gently, “are ya injured?”

“My right leg feels like its been cooked but my nanites have cooled it down and my suit's injected pain-meds,” Dawn reported as she pushed herself into a sitting position, “I feel like I'm one big bruise where it hit me with its claw and my grav pack don't work...other than that I feel fine!”

“Cool,” Riko replied as she looked at Dawn's grav pack, “here I see what's wrong...” Riko did something and the tell-tails on Dawn's HUD informed her that her grav pack was working again, “...loose connection...can you stand? Fight?”

“Help me up, would you?” Dawn grabbed hold of Riko's arm and was lifted to her feet, testing her weight on her injured leg Dawn reported in, “Leg feels a little numb and my ribs ache but other than that I'm good to go.”

“Hold on,” Riko checked Dawn's medical readouts from the display on the chest of her suit, “it's me who says whether you're good to go or not,” Riko studied the read outs for a moment or two, “These say you're marginal, its up to you, you can stay and carry on with the mission or wait for med-evac, what do you wanna do?”

“Stay!” Dawn replied immediately.

“Cool,” Riko rested her hand on Dawn's shoulder for a moment, but removed it as Kate and Carol landed near by.

“You okay, Dawnie?” Kate asked as she hurried over to her friend.

“You look a little scorched, Summers,” Carol announced as she joined the group.

“Okay people,” Riko spoke up as she tossed away the empty rocket launcher tube she'd used on the machine, “enough of this touching reunion, there's a battle to fight...on the ready line Marines!”

0=0=0=0

As it turned out first section didn't get back into the battle straight away. First, Captain Marvin wanted to know everything about this new type of war machine that Dawn and Riko had destroyed. Next came a bunch of Marine and Star Force tech girls who questioned the pair again after downloading the images from their gun and helmet cameras. Finally a Star Force medic turned up and gave Dawn a medical check; she hummed and hawed over whether she should continue with the mission, but Dawn assured her she felt fine and the medic finally relented and let her carry on.

By the time first section got back to the battle 'B' Company had already beaten off several counter attacks made by these new demons and were surrounding the mining complex itself. The new demons the battalion were facing actually could fly. The demons appeared to be able to use their wings to either glide from a high tree or flap their wings enough to allow them to take long, low bounds over the vegetation. It wasn't true flight, the demon's wings were too small for their body size but it would still give them an advantage if they were facing troops not equipped with grav packs.

However, any advantage given by their wings was lost when they came into actual combat because their personnel weapons weren't very effective. Apart from some light machine gun type weapons and a few rocket propelled grenades, these new demons appeared to be armed with something not dissimilar from a Terran assault shotgun. However, what they lacked in effective weaponry the demons made up for in aggressiveness, they'd been attacking the human forces with vigour whenever they got the chance and despite their poor weaponry they were causing the Marines casualties. By far the most effective demon weapon were the war machines, luckily for the Marines there didn't appear to be a lot of them around. Those that did show up were quickly dealt with by the Marine missile teams.

It soon became obvious, as the Marines pushed the demons back towards the mine complex, that there were no human pirates present. Either the Star Force intelligence service had got it wrong, or the pirates had left, or the demons had eaten them. This was always a chance human pirates took when working with demons. Dawn often wondered what made human women work with demons; yes she'd read from her history books that ever since The First had broken out from the Sunnydale hellmouth there'd always been some humans who'd fought on the side of evil. But that was in the past, The First had been defeated on Earth, so why did some elements of womankind debase themselves and follow the First and Ultimate Evil? It was one of the things she still didn't understand about this future world in which she was stranded.

Not wishing to risk using large amounts of nerve gas, as no one had any idea how it would effect the local lifeforms. The Major in charge of the battalion ordered a full scale ground assault on the mine complex. This looked as if it could be pretty bloody as the Battalion C/O was also reluctant to use any gunfire support form the Maitland for fear of killing any prisoners that the demons were supposed to be holding. Not only was there the purely natural wish to rescue these unfortunates, but those same hostages might be able to supply useful intelligence on how these new demons worked. Although demon leadership had been captured alive during various operations in the past, there were still a lot of holes in the Alliance's knowledge about demon society.

0=0=0=0

Once again Dawn's section found itself working directly under Captain Marvin, however this time when they went in, everyone would be going in at the same time. 'A' Company had been chosen to lead the assault because they were the most battle hardened company in the battalion. Dawn didn't feel so much 'battle hardened' as 'battle cooked'. Her leg was starting to hurt despite the pain-meds that her suit had injected her with, her ribs ached and her body felt generally stiff. However, she decided to tough it out as she imagined Buffy would. This didn't look as if it was going to be a long battle so she was going to hang-in there until it was won. Dawn had noticed that once she'd actually got into battle she didn't feel scared any more and the shakes had completely vanished, perhaps the doc had been right, it was all just pre-battle nerves. Waiting in the jungle surrounding the main demon base, Dawn checked her weapons and gear. A tech had checked her grav pack and pronounced it 'good to go'. A supply girl had come around with her little robot trailer and handed out more grenades and rifle ammunition. Finally Riko had come around to check on her people.

“Okay ladies,” Riko stood in front of her truncated section, “I know we didn't get off to such a good start, but like I told Dawn here,” she gestured at Dawn, “I'm gonna try an' do a better job in future...but first we've gotta kick these demons right off this dirt ball of a planet, roger that so far?”

“ROGER THAT!” Dawn, Kate and Carol replied eagerly.

“Coool,” Dawn could almost see Riko's shark-like grin through her face plate, “Okay ladies, this is what we do...in about five minutes we grav in and take that place from under those demon bastard’s noses. Remember to check your fire before you take something out, there's supposed to be some hostages in there...okay ladies, lets get it on!”

Waiting in the jump-off area, Dawn had time to think about what she was about to do and found that she was good with it. The demons weren't human, she felt almost nothing about killing them in large numbers; she'd happily exterminate every demon in the galaxy if that was what it took to save womankind from enslavement by The First. Over the years she'd found that this was a sentiment shared by even the most peaceable woman, Dawn wondered if she'd been changed in some way as she'd never felt like she did now towards any creature...even Spike, apart from that time she'd threatened to set him on fire.

“Thirty seconds,” Captain Marvin's voice came over her comms, “stand ready!”

Getting to her feet, Dawn glanced to her left and right and saw her buddies standing up with her; she watched the seconds slip by, counting down to zero on her mission clock as she performed one final check of all her systems, she was as ready as she could be.

“'A' Company...” Captain Marvin's voice came loudly in Dawn's ears.

“...First section,” Riko echoed as Dawn got herself ready to power up her grav pack.

“...prepare to move...” Captain Marvin shot up into the air and moved ahead of her company directly towards the demon positions around the mine.

“Wait for the order,” Riko cautioned as the Captain got closer to the mine and further away from the company.

“...MOVE!”

Taking a couple of running steps, Dawn jumped, her grav pack kicked in and she found herself chasing after the Captain and ignoring the fire the demons directed at her. Some ghostly red beams reached out and touched troopers making them either flash into non-existence or cutting them in half. Lines of tracer rose from the demon positions to rattle like hail against the armoured suits of the Marines. But Dawn didn't see any of this, her eyes were fixed on the lone figure of Captain Marvin as she dodged between the lines of demon fire seemingly immune to the enemy's weapons. In her ears she could hear Riko telling the section to watch their intervals and not to get too far ahead of the company line; she sounded very calm and professional and Dawn suddenly realised that Riko actually did know what she was doing.

Concentrating once more on Captain Marvin's figure, Dawn saw the demons rush forward to meet her. For a second the Captain appeared to be swarmed over by the demonic horde as she came in to land before kicking off for another long, low bounce. Triggering her rifle, Dawn watched as her bullets cut down demons sending bits of demon and blood flying in all directions. Coming into land near the place she'd last seen the Captain, Dawn fired burst after burst at the demons, she saw them fall around her and it was only after she'd killed about a dozen of them that she noticed how most of them had been armed with nothing more dangerous that hammers and crowbars. These weren't warriors these were workers, but they were also demons so she kept on killing them.

“Dawn, watch your left!” Riko called as she landed about five yards to the right of her, “Where's the Captain?”

“Ahead about a dozen yards,” Dawn replied as she turned to cover the left flank.

Moments later Kate and Carol arrived and the section formed a short line, less than a twenty yards long.

“Okay,” Riko called, “we'll bomb our way forward at the walk, look out for the Captain, roger that?”

“ROGER!” first section dropped their rifles, drew their hand flamers and took grenades from their belts.

Using a mixture of flame and high explosive, Dawn's section made their way forward to where she'd last seen the Captain. They found her still alive and uninjured, but cursing foully having been trapped under a pile of dead worker demons.

“Well done first section!” Captain Marvin cried as Kate helped her to his feet and the rest of the section formed a loose circle around her, “That'll teach me to try and be heroic...now I better find out what the hell’s going on!”

While Captain Marvin got back into contact with the rest of the company, first section milled around burning down workers and the few warriors mixed in with them. There were just enough warriors to make life dangerous for an inattentive Marine, but nowhere near enough to pose a serious threat. Dawn for one was wondering if they'd broken the main force of demons.

“Listen up 'A' Company,” Captain Marvin's voice came over the command-net, proper radio procedure appeared to have gone out of the window. “The demons are counter attacking to the south-east. It looks like they've stripped the rest of their line of warriors so we'll only be facing a few. Ignore the workers unless they attack, burn down any warriors you see and make for the centre of the complex...lets get this done ladies!”

0=0=0=0


	7. Chapter 7

Flying low and fast, Dawn zigzagged between the incomprehensible demon machinery like a skier on a slalom course. Below her the ground was scattered with panicking, grey-brown, worker demons who hopped, ran and flapped for the nearest cover at her approach. Captain Marvin had told them to ignore the workers and concentrate on the few bigger, more dangerous warrior demons mixed in with them. However, whatever her orders were she just couldn't simply ignore all those monsters. As she flew she left handfuls of fire pills behind her; the little yellow and red 'pills' fell from her hand to land on the demons below, each pill would then burst into white hot flame immediately incinerating the demons they'd landed on and setting their neighbours on fire.

Seeing one of the larger warrior demons, Dawn grounded, brought up her rifle and fried before the creature even knew it was in danger. Her rounds stitched their way across its chest blowing it off its feet in the process. Lying on the ground the demon flapped its wings in a feeble attempt to escape before finally dying as its blood oozed from its wounds. While on the ground Dawn took a moment to look at the general situation given to her by her HUD. First she saw that her section mates were all within about fifty yards of her. Opening her field of view a little, she saw the rest of the company milling around the mining facility in a confusion of coloured lights, each denoting a marine fire team or a group of demons. After setting the controls of her HUD so she could pick out Riko, Kate and Carol more clearly, Dawn incinerated a couple of worker demons with her flamer before kicking in her grav pack and taking off again.

The HUDs were good, but the face plate of an armoured suit was way too small to give her any thing more than a general overview of the situation. This being her first real battle, Dawn wanted to see what was going on, so heading towards a tall tower that appeared to be made out of oddly bent and twisted pipes, Dawn shot upwards. Landing moments later on a gantry at the very top of the tower, she felt the structure shift under her weight, it obviously hadn't been built to take the weight of a fully armed and armoured Marine landing on it. Keeping her balance by holding out her arms and using little thrusts from her grav pack's jets, Dawn managed not to fall or bring the tower crashing down.

Looking out over the battlefield, Dawn could see where the demon counter-attack was being smashed into ruin by the units not involved in the assault. Seeing several of the big war machines lying crashed and smoking surrounded by piles of dead warrior demons, Dawn knew that the demon counter attack must have failed. Very soon the rest of the battalion would break through and the battle would end with them wiping out the workers that still milled around the mine area. Satisfied that she'd seen everything she was likely to see, Dawn prepared to jump from the tower and rejoin her buddies.

Just as she was looking down and picking a landing spot the tower shifted under her and almost sent her plummeting towards the ground. Reaching out and grabbing a metal support, Dawn watched as her armoured hand bent the metal support into an unnatural shape, she'd over compensated and used too much of her power enhanced strength. Releasing the support, Dawn got back to her feet and was just in time to see the demon warrior as it stood at the tower end of the gantry pointing its assault shotgun-like weapon at her.

“OH CRAP!” Dawn yelled as the demon opened up on her and she heard and felt the demon's slugs hitting her armour.

None of the slugs penetrated her armour but the force of their impact did knock her off her feet and sent her sprawling across the gantry until she fell off the tower and into thin air. Falling, Dawn called herself all sorts of idiot as she twisted in the air so she was more or less upright before feeding power to her jump pack. Her pack's grav unit strained as it fought to prevent her from barrelling into the ground below thus saving her buddies from the necessity of burying her. With only a few feet to go, Dawn's grav unit saved her from an early death. Kicking out with her legs Dawn zoomed upwards again towards the gantry. Popping up like a heavily armed and armoured jack-in-the-box, she found herself face-to-face with the demon that had shot at her. Triggering her rifle, she hit the demon with a burst of twenty rounds, but, Dawn almost tumbled her gyros again as the demon's ammunition exploded; pieces of burning demon flew by her as she tried to stabilise herself.

“Hey, kid,” Riko's voice came over the squawk-net to Dawn's ears, “stop fooling around will ya an' form on me, okay?”

“Erm...yeah, roger that,” Dawn replied not so crisply as she lost altitude and tried to find Riko and her section mates on her HUD.

Sighing with relief, Dawn picked out her buddies from the general confusion of the battle below. Her section was standing about seventy-five yards north of her position next to some sort of really big building. Altering the angle of her flight, Dawn landed a few yards in front of her friends.

“How you doing, Dawnie?” Carol asked, “We saw you fall off that tower, what the hell were you doing?”

“Saw a demon,” Dawn lied, not wanting to admit that she'd basically been sightseeing, “but it got the drop on me, but I got it in the end.”

“You sure did,” Kate pointed to the tower that Dawn had just jumped from.

Turning to see what Kate was pointing at, Dawn saw the tower bend in the middle and slowly start to fall to the ground. Moving in what looked like slow motion, the tower eventually crashed to the ground crushing several worker demons and throwing up a big cloud of dust as it eventually came to rest.

“Just as well we don't want to use this place after the demons,” Kate pointed out laughing softly.

“Hey, listen up,” Riko's voice broke in on them over the squawk-net, “I've been on the comms to Captain Marvin and she wants to meet up with us the other side of this building,” Riko patted the side of the building that they were all standing next to, “move it people!”

Engaging her jump pack, Riko shot straight upwards. Left standing flat footed by Riko's sudden disappearance, Dawn, Kate and Carol activated their grav packs a good five seconds after Riko had taken off. Following their section leader over the top of the building the three newbies were pretty sure that Riko was simply showing off. There was no real need to fly over the building, in fact it would have been tactically more sound to have gone around it. But Hellgods and NCOs move in mysterious ways and it wasn't the place of very junior privates to second guess their section leader. Coming into land on the other side of the building, Dawn saw Riko and Captain Marvin standing near a very large door in the side of the structure. This was probably why the Captain wanted them over this side.

“Okay, listen up,” called Marvin as her Marines lined up in front of her, “BHQ has reason to believe that this is where the demons are keeping the hostages...” Captain Marvin paused to let that piece of news sink in, “...we're going down inside here,” she gestured at the doorway, “to see if they're right, roger that so far?”

“Roger that!” first section called out in chorus.

“Okay, good,” Captain Marvin smiled but through her face plate no one could see her do it, “we go in, by the numbers, just like you were doing a building clearance exercise back in Boot. Check your fire before you light anything up and be careful with those flamers we don't want to toast our own people,” Marvin paused before speaking again, “Stay frosty and sing out if you find anything, okay?”

“Ma'am, yes Ma'am!” Dawn, Kate and Carol cried out in unison.

“Gotcha, Ma'am,” Riko replied in a more relaxed tone.

“Okay,” Captain Marvin chuckled, “I'll lead, Dawn you'll be my back-up, Kate, Carol, you're the main force and Riko you're tail-end-charlie.”

“Ma'am,” Riko agreed; Dawn had noticed how Captain Marvin had put his most experienced Marine in the most important position after her own, the only thing she couldn't understand was why the captain had picked her to be her back up.

Moving into the ill lit building, Dawn found herself surrounded by towering pieces of weirdly shaped machinery. Cycling her HUD through to infer-red she found that she could see more clearly. It seemed that the demons could see into the infer-red end of the spectrum and appeared to light their underground facilities with infer-red lights. Turning as she caught sight of some movement over to her right, Dawn brought her aiming pipper to rest on the body of a worker demon that was bustling about aimlessly between the silent machines.

“Contact, right, worker demon,” Dawn called quietly into her comms.

“Stay frosty,” Riko's voice called to her from the rear of the section.

“Don't worry about me, Corporal,” Dawn replied, “I'm as cool as one of those long, cool, green things.”

“A marrow?” Carol asked.

“What about a zucchini?” Kate suggested.

“Less chatter,” Riko called out and everyone shut up.

They'd covered about thirty yards into the building when they found themselves at the top of a wide ramp leading down into the bowels of the earth.

“Okay,” Captain Marvin held up her hand bringing the section to a halt, “looks like we're going under ground...everyone on infer-red?” everyone made a thumbs up signal. “Good, follow me.”

Starting down the ramp, Dawn became hyper aware of her surroundings. Peering into the shadows she imagined hundreds of warrior demons lurking in the dark just waiting to leap out at her, but, none did. Down and down they went following the ramp as it spiralled around to the left. By the time they got to the bottom their instruments told them they were a good one-hundred feet below ground.

“I've lost contact with the Sergeant-Major, Ma'am,” Riko reported as she joined the group at the bottom of the ramp.

“Can't be helped, Riko,” Marvin replied, “we've still got to go on.”

Standing at the bottom of the ramp, Dawn saw yet more strange machines sitting on the concrete-like flooring. There were conveyor belts criss crossing the chamber going from what looked like furnaces to machines with huge hoppers. Obviously, Dawn told herself this was some sort of smelting works, but why the demons had put it underground she couldn't imagine.

“Okay, enough sightseeing,” Captain Marvin called; she pointed to another wide ramp that led even further down into the bowels of the earth, “lets see where that leads.”

They'd only walked another ten yards, probably less, when the demons attacked. One moment the ramp was quiet and empty of anything except five weary Marines. The next the walls and ceiling seemed to come alive and the world was full of demons. Screaming more in shock than fear, Dawn triggered her rifle. High velocity bullets sprayed all around ricocheting off the walls and machinery or blasting warrior demons into bloody pulp. Demon slugs smashed against her armour making it sound like she was in a tin hut in a hail storm. Seeing the effects of her friend's weapons, Dawn headed for the floor, the safest place to be from her friend's and the demon's fire.

Rolling onto her side, Dawn found herself staring down the muzzle of a demon light machine gun. Screaming in fear she triggered her rifle just as the demon triggered its own weapon. For an instant Dawn's world consisted of dazzlingly bright, white, light as the muzzle flashes from her and the demon's weapon lit up her world like she was in some kind of hellish disco. The demon exploded from the hydrostatic shock caused by being hit by so many high velocity bullets. At the same time Dawn screamed in pain as she felt the demon's bullets impact her chest. Spinning across the floor from the force of the impacts, Dawn crashed into the wall of the ramp and lay for a moment not believing she was still alive. Red tell-tails flashed at her from her HUD telling her that her suit had been compromised. Feeling the pin pricks of her medical system pumping pain meds into her veins as her nanites rushed to seal the holes in her suit, Dawn felt her blood trickle down between her breasts and across her ribs.

“Oh crap!” Dawn groaned.

“WOMAN DOWN!” Riko yelled as she blasted her way through the struggling demon horde with her hand flamer, somewhere in the distance a grenade went off followed by the hot, flare and sizzling hiss of a handful of fire piles bursting into inflammatory life.

Finding she'd lost her rifle, Dawn pulled her flamer and toasted a demon who looked as if it was coming to finish her off.

“DAWN! CHECK FIRE! CHECK FIRE!” Riko screamed as she stumbled through the flames to kneel by Dawn's right. “How ya doin' Marine?”

Riko took in the battered and bloody breast plate of Dawn's armour, the armour there was its thickest which was probably why the Captain and herself wouldn't be writing a 'deeply regrets' letter to Dawn's adopted family anytime soon. However, the demon's bullets had actually penetrated her suit and smashed up just about all her external equipment which included Dawn's medical readouts. After burning down another demon with her flamer, Riko took a jack plug from her own medical unit and plugged it into a general purpose socket on the side of Dawn's helmet.

“Don't you dare die on me Marine,” Riko ordered as she read off the information coming to her from Dawn's suit.

“Is it bad?” Dawn croaked, it hurt to talk, “It feels bad, but I'm going to be okay, right?”

“A couple of holes, some more broken ribs and you'll need a new suit,” Riko pointed out, “Other than that you're just goldbricking...”

“Corporal Sengupta...Riko?” Captain Marvin appeared in Dawn's field of vision, “How's Summers?”

“She'll live, Ma'am,” Riko confirmed, “But we need to get her medevaced asap.”

“Can she stand-up there's something you all should see,” Captain Marvin helped Riko get Dawn to her feet.

It was only when she'd been pulled to her feet that Dawn noticed that the only demons around were dead ones. Swaying a little from the effects of blood loss and the drugs that had been pumped into her system, Dawn stood between Marvin and Riko as they helped her down the ramp until they came out into a huge chamber.

“This is what the demons were defending, I thought you should see.”

Looking up Dawn saw a huge demon, in fact it was more than huge, it was enormous, bigger than any animal that had ever lived on Earth.

“What the feck...?” Dawn demanded weakly, her senses must be playing tricks on her, or it was the drugs, nothing alive could be that big.

“What the feck indeed, Marine Summers,” Captain Marvin gestured to the creature, “That is a Demon King, we guessed they existed but we've never seen one alive before, let alone heard of anyone capturing one.”

“The hostages, Ma'am?” Riko asked as she held up Dawn with an arm around her waist.

“No sign so far,” Marvin sighed sadly, “but we haven't completed a search yet...” she took a deep breath, “...Holburn, Salazar, get Summers to the surface and contact the Sergeant-Major to get her medevaced. Have the Sergeant-Major send more people down here, we need to search and secure that thing.”

“Wilco Ma'am,” Kate and Carol took Dawn from Riko and started to head for the surface.

“This is a great day for the Alliance, Riko,” Captain Marvin said as she looked up at the sleeping Demon King.

“If you say so, Ma'am,” Riko replied as she turned to watch Dawn being carried away by her friends.

“But I don't suppose you care about that much, do you?” Marvin asked softly, “I expect you'd rather be looking after your buddy, am I right?”

“Sure thing, Ma'am,” Riko replied.

“Don't worry about Summers, she'll be up and around in no time,” Marvin reassured Riko.

“You guarantee that Ma'am?” Riko wanted to know.

“Trust me,” Marvin turned to look at Riko, “I'm an officer...”

“Yeah...right!”

0=0=0=0


	8. Chapter 8

It was only three days after 'The Battle of RJ-1717-4' and the Maitland was already heading towards her next mission. Lying in bed in the Maitland's sick bay, Dawn only had the vaguest of ideas of what was going on around her. Having proved to herself that she could face combat, she wanted to get back into battle again and burn down more demons. Just as she was considering breaking out of sick bay and rejoining her buddies in the section bay, she saw her section leader come into the compartment and walk over to stand next to her bed.

“Hi kid,” Riko smiled down at Dawn before searching out a chair and sitting down, “how d'ya feel?”

“You mean apart from the hole in my chest, the broken ribs and the cooked leg?” Dawn asked lightly.

“Yeah,” Riko nodded as she made herself comfortable on the hard chair.

“Fine,” Dawn shrugged, “Doc says I'll be outta here tomorrow.”

“Cool,” Riko smiled obviously relieved at the news, “somethin' weird's goin' on I'm gonna need my best Marine back.”

“You are?” Dawn sounded a little puzzled; okay, she'd proved to herself that she could face the demons and kick ass, but she wasn't so sure she'd proved it to anyone else.

“Yeah, sure,” Riko confirmed with a grin, “ya did good, apart from the sightseeing.”

“Yeah,” Dawn looked down and studied her hands for a moment, “sorry about that, I won't do it again.”

“Nah its cool,” Riko reassured her and shrugged, “everyone does it at some point, even me...”

“You did?”

“Sure,” Riko laughed quietly at the look of surprise on Dawn's face, “y'know I was a boot once too.”

“I find that totally hard to believe,” Dawn pointed out, “I thought you'd been like born a Corporal.”

“Hey watch it,” Riko grinned, “once upon a time I was young and stupid just like you, if I hadn't been I'd never have joined the Corps.”

“Why did you join, Riko?” Dawn wanted to know, “I joined so I wouldn't have to spend the rest of my life working in a dress shop, maybe not the best reason but its a better than some I've heard.”

“Me?” Riko shrugged, “I think I was bored, y'know?”

“Bored?”

“Yeah, bored with the life I was leading,” Riko shrugged again and studied her nails for a moment.

“So...” Dawn asked slowly, “...what were you doing?”

“Nothing useful,” Riko admitted, “I was picked up by the police in New York...” Riko noted the look Dawn was giving her and laughed quietly, “...it was nothing 'bad'. The truth is the police found me...some asshole had stabbed me in the gut...I was in a gang see? Anyway that's what the cops said afterwards.”

“Wow,” Dawn gasped, “why?”

“Don't know,” Riko explained, “can't remember much of anything before the cops grabbed me off the street. The Doc a the hospital said I was lucky to be alive, but I can't remember a thing.”

“Nothing?”

“I could remember that my name was Riko...the hospital gave me my last name,” Riko sighed, “When they let me outta hospital and the cops couldn't track down my family I sorta just sat in the hostel they'd put me in. I got a couple of jobs waitressing but they didn't last...”

“So you enlisted,” Dawn finished Riko's sentence for her; it seemed she had more in common with her section leader than she'd suspected.

“Yeah an' here I am...” Riko laughed, “...haven't looked back. The corps has a good record of turning gangers 'round and making them into good Marines and citizens.”

“Do you know how old you are?” Dawn asked.

“Cops,” Riko smiled, “thought I was about seventeen or eighteen when they found me.”

“Okay,” Dawn thought for a moment, “which makes you what? Twenty-three, twenty-four maybe?”

“About,” Riko agreed, “but I didn't come here to talk about how old I am...”

“You haven't?”

“Nah,” Riko shook her head.

“Then why are you here?” Dawn asked, “Apart from seeing me of course...”

“That's always a plus,” Riko admitted with a grin.

“Oh Corporal,” Dawn sniffed and wiped a non-existent tear from her eye, “you say the nicest things, I never knew you cared!”

“Got something for ya,” Riko stood up and started to search through the pockets of her overalls; after a moment she produced a small, black, plastic box, “there y'go,” she handed the box to Dawn before adding, “don't let that go to ya head we all got one, so it's not like you did anything special.”

Taking the small box, it was about the same size box that engagement rings came in; opening it she found a small bronze oak leaf nestling inside the box.

“If you don't know what it is its a 'Mentioned in Dispatches' award,” Riko explained, “Its about the lowest commendation you can get that goes on your uniform next to any medals ya get.”

“How the hell did I get that?” Dawn couldn't think of anything noteworthy that she'd done recently.

“Like I say we all got one,” Riko explained, “Captain Marvin named the entire section when she wrote her report about the Demon King.”

“Oh yeah,” Dawn's face fell as she remembered the other part of the mission that hadn't worked out so well, “Did they find any of the hostages alive?”

“Sorry kid, not-a-one,” Riko replied quietly, “looks like the demons killed them as soon as we landed...but hey we've got a King now so maybe we can trade him for our girls, or hold him hostage for the lives of our people...”

“Yeah,” Dawn sighed sadly, “whatever...”

The thought of being captured by demons had never entered Dawn's mind; she kind of knew that if it looked like the demons were going to get her, she'd use a grenade to self destruct before her suit's power ran down and she was helpless.

“Hey,” Riko tried to jolly Dawn out of her sudden attack of the 'sads'. “don't get all down on me kid, I've got some more good stuff here...” once again Riko's hand delved into the pocket of her dark khaki coveralls, “...there's this,” she passed Dawn a small, black, fabric star edged in silver, “no doubt you'll get more if ya don't get scragged outright.”

“Wow, Riko,” Dawn took the 'Wound Star' from Riko's hand, “you sure know how to make a girl feel special.”

“I do what I can,” Riko shrugged, her hand went deeper into her left, leg pocket, “you wear that on ya right...”

“I know where it goes,” Dawn interrupted as she looked at the simple fabric star; she wondered at the price paid for something so ordinary, “so what else have you got...mind, I'm not sure I wanna know the way you're searching around down there!”

“Here...” Riko held out another black, plastic box, this one was larger than the first box she'd received.

“Wow more presents!” Dawn took the box off Riko, opened the lid and starred in surprise at the contents.

“There you go, Marine First Class Dawn Summers,” Riko announced officially, “congratulations on making MFC after only one mission...and another thing, you're officially Assistant Team Leader...”

“H-How?” Dawn stuttered, “W-Why?”

“How? Why?” Riko sat down again, “Look the Captain and I thought you deserved it, you showed initiative and when the chips were down you went down swinging, you kept fighting even when it looked like you were gonna get scragged. We need attitude like that if we're gonna make the universe safe for womankind, or so the Captain tells me. Personally I think ya just got lucky...”

“Lucky?” Dawn gestured to the dressings that still swathed her chest.

“Hey,” Riko smiled, “don't give me that 'wounded soldier' act, remember I talked to the Doc...you were only dead for a couple of minutes...that's nothin’!”

“Okay, I'll come clean,” Dawn sighed heavily, “I only got shot so I could get a couple of days in bed and off having to clean the laundry. But, really, Assistant Team Leader?”

“Look, there's still only the four of us,” Riko pointed out; she wondered if there'd still be four of them after the next mission, “and Captain Marvin wants to keep us as a sorta HQ team for now, or until we get more replacements, so we'll be around the Captain or the Sergeant-Major most of the time...”

“Y'think?” Dawn wasn't sure she could make it as an ATL, she had enough trouble organising herself let alone being responsible for two other people.

A moment later Dawn realised that it wouldn't make very much difference, weren't they all responsible for each other anyway?

“Hey,” Riko raised her hands in a gesture of surrender, “wasn't my idea, Captain Marvin asked me who I'd recommend for promotion...I said you and she confirmed it.”

“You're faith in me is totally misplaced, Riko,” Dawn replied slowly.

“Don't mean nothin',” Riko pointed out with a shrug, “we're probably all gonna die on the next mission anyway, so it won't matter if ya screw up.”

“I'm going to screw up?” Dawn asked belligerently, “What about you?”

“Me? I'm perfect,” Riko gave Dawn a crooked smile, “I'll always come back...”

0=0=0=0

**TASS Maitland, twenty-eight days later.**

The alarm jerked Dawn from a deep sleep, opening her eyes she sat up in her rack and thought, 'Oh Goddess not another alert?' For the last twenty or more days, in fact ever since the battle with the flying demons the Maitland had been flying from one emergency call to another. It was almost like she was an old fashioned police cruiser, rushing from one crime scene to another, only every time she arrived at the scene of the crime there'd be no one there. The last three star jumps to answer distress calls had resulted in them finding one looted and deserted merchant ship, one destroyed mining operation on an asteroid and one small farming colony, looted, destroyed and no sign of the colonists, not even any bodies.

“Come on people,” Riko moved through the compartment encouraging anyone still in their racks to get out of them; she was already dressed in the body suit they all wore under their armour, “hit the deck!” Groaning and complaining the three other members of first section, rubbed their eyes, stretched, farted and yawned. “Dawn,” Riko called, “get everyone up an' into their body suits an' on the move, roger that so far?”

“Roger,” Dawn replied as she forced herself to her feet and wondered if she had time for a quick shower.

“I'm gonna find the Sierra-Maria an' find out what the feck's goin' on,” Riko informed Dawn as she headed for the hatch.

By the time Riko reappeared, Dawn had got everyone up and into their body suits; she'd decided that she'd not have time for a shower, but she had washed her face and brushed her teeth, it had helped to wake her up. Kate and Carol stood next to her as they waited in the section's common area for Riko's return. When the section corporal did come back her face looked grim, so they all knew something bad had happened.

“Listen up people,” Riko began with a heavy sigh, “this is what I've found out...” Riko paused to make sure she had everyone's attention, “Okay, about three days ago Star Force sector command received a distress call from the 'Laura Ashley'...”

Dawn couldn't help herself and sniggered at the ship's name only to receive a dark look from Riko for the interruption.

“Sorry,” Dawn said when she saw the look Riko was giving her, “I'll shut up now.”

“Okay, where was I?” Riko continued, “Yeah...the Laura Ashley,” she cast Dawn a warning look, “she's a transport taking five-thousand colonists to a new colony out on the rim. The Captain sent a distress call reporting that the ship was being attacked by fighter craft of unknown design. Since then there's been no more communications from the 'Ashley'.”

“Nothing?” Kate asked.

“Any idea who attacked them?” Dawn wanted to know.

“No,” Riko shook her head, “not officially, but I'm betting on it being those flappy-demon-bastards again.”

“Yeah!” Dawn, Kate and Carol replied in chorus with just a hint of a feral growl in their voices.

“Okay, people,” Riko turned towards the hatch, “lets get armoured up an' get these bastards!”

“Right on!” cried first section as they followed their leader out of the hatch.

0=0=0=0

The next hour had been a jumble of confusing images as the battalion got into its armoured suits, drew arms and ammunition and then mustered on the flight deck. Each of the four companies were then given their assignments. Command and Support Company was to stay on the Maitland to act as a battalion reserve. 'C' Company had the job of securing the Ashley's engineering spaces and the aft end of the ship. 'B' Company was tasked with searching the cargo holds and colonist's quarters, while 'A' Company had the job of securing the bridge and crew quarters.

It was only after Dawn and her buddies had boarded the platoon shuttle and they'd launched from the Maitland's shuttle bay that she caught her first glimpse of the 'Laura Ashley'. The ship looked big, almost as big as the Maitland and put Dawn in mind of the pictures she'd seen of airships from back in the nineteen-twenties and thirties. However, the smooth outline of the ship that gave it the 'airship look' was marred by the addition of what looked like 'sludge tanks', cargo pods and atmospheric shuttles which had been attached to the hull in no particular order. There didn't appear to be any battle damage that Dawn could see but the main cargo airlock was standing wide open which was never a good sign.

Following Captain Marvin's shuttle in through the airlock, Dawn braced for the hail of fire she was expecting, but when nothing happened she relaxed and took a moment to check out her weapons and equipment again. Once more First Section was going to act as Captain Marvin's personnel fire team, they were to rally on the Captain as soon as they landed aboard the Ashley. While the rest of the company went about its assigned tasks, Dawn and her buddies were to follow the company commander as she made her way towards the bridge itself. Although Dawn knew that being assigned as to what amounted to being the Captain's body guard was a big honour, but when push came to shove she'd much rather be within range of the rest of 'A' Company's firepower. 

There was a muffled 'clunk' as the platoon shuttle came into land in the Ashley's airlock. Before she had time to think about it, Dawn found herself following her comrades out into the harsh light of the airlock come loading bay. As she mustered by sections, information in the form of the CSM's voice came over her comms. The CSM told everyone that although the power and lighting were switched on, the artificial gravity had been disabled and that as far as anyone could ascertain all compartments had been opened to space. This wasn't good news because it meant that unless people had made it to the emergency shelters there'd be no survivors.

“What happened here?” Carol asked as the truncated section stood to one side to let the rest of the company move out.

“Pirates?” Kate suggested.

“I'm with Riko on this one,” Dawn gave her opinion, “this looks too big a ship for pirates to tackle.”

Even transports like the Ashley were armed, it would also take several pirate bands working together to have enough ships and personnel to deal with kidnapping five thousand colonists. Also, from what Dawn could see of the huge airlock the pirates (if it was in fact pirates) hadn't stripped the Ashley of everything useful. In fact if it was pirates why hadn't they simply taken the Ashley itself? Such a large ship would be a major boast to any pirate chief who captured it.

“No this was the work of demons,” Dawn added darkly just as the Captain and Riko walked over to join them.

“You could well be right, Marine Summers,” Captain Marvin's voice echoed around inside her helmet, “Good morning First Section, nice to have you on this little adventure again.”

A little adventure that could get them all killed, Dawn couldn't help but think; the last time she'd been on one of the captain's 'adventures' it had almost got her killed.

“HOORAH!” replied Kate and Carol eagerly.

“Whatever,” Dawn muttered under her breath.

“Okay people, enough of the chit-chat,” Marvin turned towards an open hatchway about five yards further along the bulkhead wall from where they stood, “follow me!”

“Follow me?” Dawn muttered in the privacy of her helmet, “Follow me to a posthumous Terran Cross more like!”

0=0=0=0

With the artificial gravity switched off, first section made their way along the deserted corridors of the Ashley by using minor squirts of 'go-juice' from their grav packs. This meant they had to split their time between not colliding with bulkhead walls, or closed hatches and watching out for any terror that might be hiding around the next corner.

“No sign of battle damage,” Riko said.

“Not up here,” replied Captain Marvin, “but I'm getting reports on the command net that there was a major firefight down in engineering...oh, and the Maitland is sending an engineering team over to try and get the gravity back on line...door!” Holding her hand up, Marvin brought the little group to a halt just short of a closed door, “Summers!”

At the Captain's call, Dawn made her way to the front of the group. Using her enhanced power armoured hand she ripped the cover from the door's activation unit and ran a bypass. The door opened about eighteen inches to reveal a darkened section of corridor ahead of them.

“No lights,” Dawn called as she cycled her helmet through to thermal imaging; the corridor was 'cool' indicating there were no life forms hiding in the darkness. “Clear,” Dawn reported, “but it looks like there was a firefight here too.”

There were indeed bullet marks on the floor and walls, plus signs that some one had used grenades.

“Open her up,” Marvin ordered.

“Cover,” Dawn called as she dropped her rifle on its tether as she gripped the edges of the doors with both hands. 

At her call Carol came up beside Dawn and poked the barrel of her LAG through the gap in the door. Anyone shooting at them would be in for a nasty surprise when they were blown apart by a hail of 13mm HE anti-personnel rounds. With a grunt, Dawn pulled the doors apart wide enough for someone in a suit to access the corridor ahead. Taking her rifle in her hands once more Dawn led the way into the corridor followed by the Captain and the rest of her team.

“Nothing,” Marvin announced with a heavy sigh.

“Damn-it!” this was Kate's voice.

“What's up Marine?” Marvin asked.

“Something on my face plate,” Kate replied as she tried to wipe the black fluid from off the bowl of her faceplate, “there must be a leak or something.”

“Here, let me get that...” Dawn said as she moved to help her buddy.

“Oh crap!” Carol called as she started to retch.

“Don't throw up!” Riko cried urgently as she looked up to the source of the 'leak', “Oh sweat Lady!” she cried when she saw what was making Carol react so badly.

“What the...?” Captain Marvin demanded as she too looked upward, “Goddess save us...”

“What the feck's going on?” Dawn demanded as she too looked up.

Pinned to the ceiling above them by what looked like metal spikes was the body of one of the ships crew. By the looks of things she'd taken a long time to die bleeding out from a multitude of small wounds, whoever had done this had really enjoyed themselves.

0=0=0=0


	9. Chapter 9

**TASS Maitland, a day after the discovery of the SS Laura Ashley.**

Sitting at her desk in her cabin, Captain Marvin tried to ignore the feelings of anger and the lust for revenge she was feeling after what she'd seen aboard the Laura Ashley. If she let her emotions take control of her mind she knew she'd not be able to command her company effectively and that would mean more women would die. She was an officer, at OTS she'd been trained to control her emotions, but sometimes when the 'berserker rage' started to take hold it was very difficult to keep a clear mind. Sighing and pushing her keyboard to one side, Marvin reflected that it was the 'berserker rage' that had helped womankind survive the wars against The First and helped them defeat every new threat as it presented itself. The 'rage' might be a useful tool, but it was a terrible mistress. In this woman's Marine Corps you had to know when to let it out and when to keep it bottled up.

Hearing her door chimes, Marvin looked at the screen of her computer terminal and saw CSM Bailey standing outside in the corridor, she pressed the control to open the door.

“Come on in, Cee-es-em,” Marvin called as her door slid silently open.

“Evenin' Captain,” Bailey greeted her commanding officer as she stepped into the cabin and the door swished quietly shut behind her.

“Take a seat, Leah, take the weight off,” Marvin gestured to a chair on the opposite side of her desk; she and Leah Bailey had known each other since Marvin had been a very junior second lieutenant and Bailey had been her first Platoon Sergeant. 

“Thanks, Abby,” Leah Bailey sighed as she sat down, “I'm getting too old for this...”

“How long to retirement now?” Abby Marvin asked.

“Two years,” Leah smiled, “gotta say I'm looking forward to eighteen months of pencil pushing before I get out for good...I mean it's been fun but this is a young woman's Marine Corps now.”

“You're not married are you?” Abby asked knowing damn well that Leah was single.

“Nah,” Leah shook her head, “but I'm thinking about it, find some sweet young thing, get married and move to a nice backwater planet with blue skies, warm seas and nothing that wants to make a snack outta you or ya nearest an' dearest.”

“Any woman would be lucky to have you as a partner...” Abby paused for a moment before saying what she really wanted to say, “...okay, we've got the small talk outta the way. So...how are the women taking it?”

“You mean after what we found on the Ashley, Captain?” Leah seamlessly slipped back into the CSM-CO relationship.

“Uh-huh,” Captain Marvin nodded her head.

“About what you'd expect...”

“Angry, vengeful, that sort of thing?”

“Yes Ma'am,” Bailey agreed with a curt nod.

“Anyone I should keep an eye on?” Marvin wanted to know.

“Erm...” Bailey paused uncertain if she was over reacting.

“Come on Leah spit it out,” Marvin said softly, “I need to know if one of my Marines is likely to go berserk and get herself and the rest of us killed.”

“Well, I don't know...” Bailey's face twisted in indecision before she made up her mind, “Its Summers, Ma'am...”

“Summers?” Marvin frowned, “I've worked with her, she has the makings of a good Marine, what's wrong with her?”

“I don't know, Ma'am, but...” Bailey sighed heavily, “...after all we saw on the Ashley, she seems a little...well...cold.”

“Cold?”

“Yeah, Ma'am, cold. Like nothing she saw affected her.”

“Like no anger, no desire for payback?”

“No, Ma'am,” Bailey shrugged helplessly, “at least none that I can see.”

“Best keep an eye on her,” Marvin said; she'd seen this sort of thing before, a Marine who'd bottled everything up inside her only to explode on the battlefield weeks, sometimes even months later. “we don't want her getting herself killed, do we?”

“No Ma'am.”

0=0=0=0

Sitting on the edge of her rack, Dawn watched her team mates closely, they were acting very strangely. In fact to Dawn's eyes they were acting more like she imagined guys would act in a similar situation. Yes, Dawn felt anger, disgust and wanted vengeance for what had been done, but she didn't seem to be experiencing these emotions as strongly as her buddies. She remembered from Boot training how there had been several lectures on controlling your emotions in combat. At the time Dawn hadn't really understood what the instructors had been talking about, now she was starting to get an inkling of what her instructors had been saying.

It had all started after they'd found the woman pinned like a strange, bloody butterfly to the ceiling of the corridor. After getting the poor woman down they'd continued their advance towards the bridge. On their route they found several more bodies, however these hadn't been tortured, these had just been shot probably during the fighting after the pirates and demons had boarded the ship. Eventually they reached the bridge only to find it had been looted of anything useful. The five crew women and officers who'd tried to defend the bridge had all been shot with what looked like shotgun type weapons. It was while Dawn, Kate and Carol were laying out the bodies for later retrieval that Captain Marvin started to receive information from the other companies searching the ship. All this information was passed on to them by Riko over the squawk-net.

It seemed that whoever had killed the passengers and crew of the Laura Ashley had taken their time over it, the medical teams already aboard estimated that the attack had happened at lest six days ago. Further information would hopefully be forthcoming when the Maitland's tech-teams had a chance to go through the Ashley's logs and other computer files.

The pirates, for that was who everyone, at that time, believed had attacked the Ashley had obviously taken their time torturing to death all the ship's crew and passengers, they'd even killed the livestock that the colonists had brought to help start their new lives. No one could understand why any of it had been done, it was a very 'un-pirate' thing to do. Normally pirates either held a ship and its passengers for ransom, or, looted the ship for anything useful after they'd used it to take the passengers to a Pirate Home World and sold them as slaves. Pirates generally kept the murder and mayhem to a minimum. After all dead bodies and a destroyed starship were worthless. However, whoever was responsible for what had happened on the Ashley had not only taken their time but had looked as if they'd really enjoyed their work.

One of the more worrying pieces of evidence was that at least one hundred of the passengers had been raped to death. This, the Marines told themselves, must mean that the pirate had brought along some 'men' and let them lose on at least some of the passengers. To a modern woman's way of thinking this was worse than being tortured to death or cut up while you were still alive. The truth of the matter was that except on very primitive planets a woman who wanted to get pregnant didn't 'couple' with a man. Instead they went to their local fertility clinic and had herself 'injected' with a 'dose' of semen. The idea of actually having sex with a male filled most women's minds with horror.

If this wasn't bad enough, things had got really scary when they found out what the pirates had done to the children. It quickly became obvious to Dawn that if the 1st Battalion ever got their hands on the pirates that had done all these terrible things they'd be lucky to just be 'spaced'. However, at the time no one knew it wasn't pirates who'd done what had been done to the people aboard the Laura Ashley, it had been something a lot worse.

0=0=0=0

**TASS Maitland, two months later.**

“So what's this new mission?” Dawn asked when she saw Riko walk back into the section bay; Kate and Carol were helping out in the armoury while Dawn had been left to clean up the bay.

“I thought you'd never ask,” Riko sat down in the common area and leaned back in her seat, she crossed her arms as Dawn came over to join her; Riko had been to the company office and had obviously found out something interesting.

“Well?” Dawn demanded impatiently.

“Okay we're off to take back a planet from the demons.”

“Oh, goody,” Dawn replied with little real enthusiasm, a planetary assault meant high casualties for the Marines in the initial assault waves.

“Yeah that's about what I thought,” Riko agreed before taking a deep breath, “FA-2661-2, better known to its inhabitants as 'Queen Mary's World'.”

Dawn recognised the name of the planet from the newscasts the Maitland had received; it that had recently been attacked by demonic forces.

“How many?” Dawn wanted to know.

“How many?” Riko replied.

“Now many people?” Dawn clarified, wanting to know how many people had lived on Queen Mary's World.

“Just shy of three million,” Riko replied soberly.

“So, they're all dead?”

“Nah,” Riko shook her head, “we know there are survivors. A planet is a big place and with a population of only about three million there's a hell of a lot of space with nothing in it. We know there's maybe eighty-thousand people either living in, or who've escaped out in-ta the wilderness.”

“Eighty-thousand out of a three million?” Dawn didn't like those odds.

“Yeah, well its better than nothing,” Riko pointed out, “look, as far as I can work out we're gonna be part of a three division drop to take back the planet and hold it until the new garrison arrives.”

“Hold until relieved, huh?” 

“Got it in one.”

“And if we don't get relieved?”

“We hold it 'til we die,” Riko shrugged

“Any chance of a transfer outta this crazy outfit?” Dawn wanted to know.

“You can always stick pencils up your nose, then put a pair of ya panties on ya head,” Riko suggested, “people might get the idea you're mad an' send ya home.”

“Never work,” Dawn got up from her seat, “I mean, who'd notice another mad woman 'round here?”

“Hey come-on, lighten up,” Riko said as she stood up next to Dawn, “it won't be that bad...whatever, we've got a battalion briefing in thirty minutes, go find Kate an' Carol will ya?”

0=0=0=0

Dawn knew there was something weird going on as soon as she arrived with the rest of 'A' Company on the hanger deck. All the troop shuttles had been either pushed to the sides of the deck or sent up to the shuttle bay, some had even been stored on the outside skin of the Maitland. All this was to make room for the rows of benches and the stage that had been set up at the far end of the deck. The stage held a row of chairs a couple of tables and at least two holograph projectors.

“Hey,” Carol smirked, “maybe we're here to watch a AESA show?”

“Can it,” Riko ordered as she pointed to four spare seats, “come on follow me!”

Arriving at the seats just before a couple of girls from 'C' Company did, the four friends sat down and made themselves comfortable just in time to have to stand up again when Major Koehler, the battalion commander arrived, followed by a gaggle of officers and a colonel who no one recognised. The officers with Major Koehler were from the Battalion's Intelligence section and Battalion HQ in general. The Colonel had Intelligence Corps tabs on her shoulders as did the Captain and a junior Lieutenant who were tagging along behind her. Everyone sat down again as soon as the senior officers reached the stage. The low buzz of conversation filled the hanger as everyone speculated on what in the hellmouth was going on. Eventually the Battalion Sergeant Major got to her feet and called for silence, moments later Major Koehler moved to the front of the stage and addressed her battalion.

“Okay, listen up Marines,” her amplified voice easily reached the Marines sitting right at the back of the hanger, “I'm not going to say much, just to tell you to listen carefully to what Colonel O'Doherty has to say and to tell you that your own Company Commanders will brief you on our up and coming mission directly after this briefing.” 

Without further comment, Major Koehler turned to the Intelligence Colonel and invited her to step forward. The tall, red haired Colonel stood up and walked slowly towards the front of the stage. Making a gesture she signalled for one of her officers to switch on the holographic projectors. To the gasps of the Marines in the audience two holograms sprang to life. One showed the warrior version of the winged demons they'd fought on RJ-1717-4, the other projected an image of one of the smaller, almost flightless worker/tech demons.

“I can hear from your reaction that you've met these beasties before,” O'Doherty said with a half smile. “First,” she continued, “what I'm about to tell has been a closely guarded secret for nearly six months now, but the Senate has decided to let the Armed Forces in on the secret before telling the general population...and not before time in my opinion.” Colonel O'Doherty gestured at the images, “These creatures are members of a race that call themselves the 'Shedu'. While they are of demonic appearance they aren't, as far as we know, actually demons; they appear to be the first, living, intelligent and advanced race that womankind has encountered...this ladies has been a First Contact situation and its not gone as well as some of us might have hoped.”

The Colonel paused for a moment to let the assembled Marines get this idea into their heads.

“You all know that womankind has been searching for other intelligent beings since almost the first day that a Terran starship left Sol System,” the Colonel sighed sadly, “well, it looks like we've found them and they've come out shooting! As far as we can tell the Shedu believed that they were the only intelligent race inhabiting this galaxy and intend to keep it that way by exterminating womankind, and anything else that can rub two sticks together and start a fire. So, lets see what we're up against...”

Like humanity the vast majority of Shedu were female, however this is where the similarity between Shedu and womankind ended. Shedu females were very much like human males; that is they were violent and not very bright. Shedu males on the other hand did all the thinking and leading and were at least as intelligent as a human women. While the males led the females into battle the third group of Shedu were the worker/tech creatures. These were more intelligent than Shedu warriors; the Techs were very intelligent, probably more intelligent in some ways than the males but the tech caste couldn't reproduce. 

The Shedu reproduced by laying clutches of four or five eggs every year. Depending on how long and at what temperature an egg it was incubated, depended on what would eventually hatch from the egg. Warriors came from eggs that had been incubated at high temperature for short periods. Males came from eggs that had been incubated at a medium temperature for about twice as long as the warriors, while the workers were incubated at relatively cool temperatures for about the same length of time as a warrior and techs were incubated for nearly twice as long as a male. It appeared that the longer and cooler a Shedu was incubated the more intelligent it was.

It was believed that the Shedu originated on a low gravity planet where the males and warriors could fly in the truest meaning. However they appeared to have no difficulty adapting to planets with higher gravity although this did affect their ability to fly. From captured records the TIA had been able to form a picture of what a Shedu planet looked like. They appeared to like the same sort of planets as womankind, although they preferred ones with lower gravity. They built strangely beautiful cities with glittering spires, fountains, lakes and waterfalls. Unfortunately the TIA hadn't been able to work out where the Shedu home world was so it could be attacked and destroyed. Fortunately it appeared that the Shedu had no idea where Earth was either and at this very moment the co-ordinates for Earth were being removed from the navigation computers of all Terran ships. Navigators would have to remember them and suicide if it seemed they were going to be captured.

Shedu weapons were at least as good as human ones. So far engagements between Terran and Shedu ships appeared to be pretty evenly matched ship for ship. However, humans had an edge in personnel weapons. The main Shedu infantry weapon was an assault shotgun weapon that fired hails of pellets that nearly always failed to penetrate human battle armour. Each Shedu squad also carried at least one light machine gun that was similar in performance to the Marine's M-TAR-25 combat rifle and was quite capable of punching through Marine armour. The Shedu also had the usual types of grenades and RPGs plus other support weapons that had human equivalents. It would appear that in any engagement, at least for the time being, womenkind's troops would have an edge.

There was one weapon that womankind had no equivalent for however; the Shedu used a beam weapon that was capable of cutting through body armour or if it didn't penetrate, roasting the Marine inside. So far no one had been able to work out how this beam worked. Fortunately for womankind these beam weapons used large amounts of power and were prone to malfunction with disastrous consequences for the crew. However, military intelligence projected that the Shedu would either improve the weapon now they were in a shooting war with another intelligent species, or, replace it with something more effective but less likely to blow up in the operator's face.

Finally there were the Demon Kings, like the one the battalion had captured on RJ-1717-4. These huge males, at least ten times the size of a normal male, appeared to have no other function than to act as some kind of biological computer. So far no human scientist had been able to access the information stored in a Demon King's brain. This was something that Earth science was still working on.

At the end of Colonel O'Doherty's lecture the battalion was dismissed back to their company areas after a short speech designed to 'buck' everyone up given by Major Koehler. To be honest at the end of the speech, Dawn felt more 'Fucked-up' than 'Bucked-up'. It had occurred to her that maybe a life spent selling dresses might not have been so bad after all. It would also seem to be longer than the life she had chosen.

0=0=0=0

AESA: Alliance Entertainment Services Association.   
RPG: Rocket Propelled Grenade.  
TIA: Terran Intelligence Agency. 


	10. Chapter 10

**Aboard the TASS Maitland.**

“Alright, settle down,” Captain Marvin called as she took her place behind the lectern at the front of the gym.

Looking out over the faces of her company, Marvin frowned for just a moment; there were still too many holes left by dead or wounded Marines for her liking and she knew that after the next operation there'd be a lot more. However, she wouldn't let her misgivings show, the Alliance needed a clear cut victory, they needed to show they could take back a planet from the Shedu without destroying it and killing any survivors of the original Shedu attack.

“As those of you who haven't been asleep in your racks for the last couple of weeks,” Marvin began, “might know, that the Maitland is now part of a Star Force task group and we've been in orbit around Queen Mary's World's primary moon for the last week.”

In the last week they'd done a couple of practice assaults on the larger moon's surface and taken part in two division sized live fire exercises.

“While we've been on vacation out here Star Force has been in orbit around Queen Mary's World blasting the Shedu to kingdom come,” there was a quiet cheer from the Marines at this news; however, Captain Marvin knew the truth about that bombardment.

As soon as Star Force started its bombardment of a planet's surface, the Shedu had headed for their bunkers and hunkered down. Sure the navy would take out anything the Shedu had built on the surface and occasionally if the navy used some of their bigger nukes or dropped rocks onto the surface they might take out some of the Shedu underground bunkers. But the majority of the Shedu would be safely below the surface where they'd wait for the first troopers to land before swarming to the surface again.

“I'm not going to lie to you people this is going to be a tough one,” Marvin explained, “and it starts tomorrow...”

There was a loud groan from Marines.

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Marvin smiled, “I know you all wanted to go in today because you've got something more interesting planned for tomorrow...” he paused, “...but General Frost has a dental appointment today so tomorrow will have to be.”

Marvin waited for her company to settle down again; when she could see that they were paying attention again, she continued with her briefing.

“So here it is people,” Marvin clicked a switch and a large holographic map of a semi-ruined city sprang to life in the air to his right, “I know most of you haven't got minds to download anything into, so here's our piece of the action,” Marvin turned to look at the hologram. “This is what remains of the city of Easthill on the river Dudwell.” Marvin glanced up at all the faces turned towards her and once again wondered how many would be there for the after action debriefing, “as you can see the Dudwell is a wide river flowing into the sea here,” the view changed slightly to included the coastline before returning to concentrate on the city. “You will notice if you haven't already fallen asleep that the main bridge across the Dudwell,” a red circle started to flash around the bridge in question, “is still intact. Now as we all know the Shedu like drier, smaller planets, they only took Queen Mary's World, because it's an important human base and they needed the resources it supplied...the Shedu don't like water, we don't think they can even swim, so they're going to need that bridge and why do they need that bridge I hear you asking? They need it because we're going to land on the south side of that bridge and the Shedu in this sector are all to the north of it,” Marvin paused to let that sink in. “Our mission, ladies is to seize that bridge and hold it against whatever the Shedu throw at us, Now, I expect you're also wondering why we don't just blow the bridge and use our grav packs to cross the river,” Marvin paused for a moment, “Well, the Brass think it might be a fun way of killing off a few Shedu, so they want us to hold the bridge, while the rest of the division lands and gets itself organised and at the same time make a hole in Shedu numbers.”

Captain Marvin continued her briefing by explaining what support the battalion would have and how long they could expect to be there, left out on a limb.

“We should be relieved within three days,” Marvin explained soberly, “it depends how much opposition the rest of the division hits. Its not expected to be heavy so they should be with us in a day, two at most.” Marvin checked her notes for a moment before adding, “I cannot stress too much that the bridge is to be held open for as long as possible, whatever comes over that bridge we are obliged to take it on. The bridge will only be destroyed if it looks like the battalion is about to be overrun.”

“Okay,” Marvin took a deep breath, “section leaders check your people's suits, we have only ten hours before 'sleep'. Assistant section leaders check weapons and ammo I don't want anyone running short while we're on the surface. Dinner will be at twenty-hundred hours and I want everyone in their racks by twenty-one-thirty, sleep will be induced at twenty-one-forty-five. revallie will be at zero-five-thirty, breakfast at zero-six-hundred. We'll start arming at zero-seven-hundred, the drop is scheduled for zero-nine-hundred Zulu to coincide with planetary dawn over the target...” once again Marvin scanned the faces of the women under her command. “Good luck ladies and I'll see you all for breakfast tomorrow...”

0=0=0=0

**Zero-nine-twenty-three, the following morning.**

The piece of shrapnel hit Dawn's helmet with a resounding 'CLANG!'. Luckily for her the lump of metal had lost most of its energy and it did little damage other than make her ears ring. Looking up at her altimeter, Dawn saw that she was still over nine thousand feet above the surface of Queen Mary's World and if she opened her chute she'd be a sitting duck; a prime target for the Shedu anti-air gunners below. The trip towards the surface of Queen Mary's World had been pretty rough so far. After punching through the upper atmosphere, Dawn had felt the shuttle she was in judder as if it had been hit by some sort of strong shock-wave. She'd put the rough ride down to bad weather, although no one had said anything about heavy weather over the jump zone before the shuttle had launched from the Maitland's shuttle bay.

After free-falling from the shuttle Dawn found herself sitting on air at about eight-thousand-and-some feet. For a moment her eyes registered, blue skies pockmarked with dirty grey explosions, someone was shooting at her, well not her personally, but the entire drop was coming under heavy fire from somewhere down below. Only having a few seconds to register what was happening, she found herself tumbling uncontrollably through the air. A cry of alarm escaped her lips as she span and tumbled head over heels towards the ground which was rushing up to meet her at an alarming rate. Dawn saw the world spin past her face plate; first there was blue sky, next the green-brown of the surface, the horizon danced wildly before her eyes and the readouts on her HUD flashed warnings at her. Holding onto the contents of her stomach by sheer force of will, she tried to curl up into a ball. Doctrine said that if you found yourself in an uncontrolled descent you should curl into a ball and pop your ribbon chute. The drag of the chute should stabilise your fall, no one had ever mentioned what would happen if it didn't. Pulling in her arms and legs, Dawn found she was still tumbling at terminal velocity towards the ground. No sooner had she curled up into a ball than she felt herself being tossed around the sky and heard pieces of shrapnel ping and rattle against her suit.

Spreading her arms and legs, Dawn found herself lying on her back staring up into the heavens. Sighing with relief she was just about to roll over so she could see what was going on when a huge explosion blossomed about five hundred feet above her. Screaming as she was sent spinning through the air again, Dawn listened as red hot pieces of metal impacted her suit at high velocity. Luckily nothing penetrated her armour; if it had it would have bounced around inside the suit and chopped her fragile body into bloody mincemeat. Armoured suits were great at keeping unpleasant stuff out, but they also tended to be equally good at keeping unpleasant stuff in, with lethal results for the wearer.

Once again Dawn regained control of her descent, only this time she found herself looking down at the surface of Queen Mary's World. It only took her a couple seconds to realise that something was very wrong, very wrong indeed. The drop plan had called for them to be dropped right into the ruins of Easthill itself, but below her there was nothing but open countryside dotted with trees and fields there wasn't a sign of the city or the river. Glancing at her HUD she saw the icons that designated her battalion were scattered all over the sky, none of her own section were anywhere nearby. Before she could decide what to do another salvo of explosions went off around her. Once again she found herself being thrown all over the sky as shrapnel hit her suit. A particularly large piece of hot metal flew by her face plate and Dawn decided she had better places to be. Adjusting the angle of her body she went into a swan dive with the intention of landing as fast as she could. Also the faster she fell meant it was harder for the Shedu gunners to get a fix on her. It was obvious that the Shedu had found a way, in the last few months, of at least hampering a drop. Instead of trying to pick out individual troopers from all the radar clutter and ECM that accompanied a drop, the Shedu had gone for the 'brute force and ignorance' approach. They simply filled the sky with large calibre shrapnel shells working on the principle that they were bound to hit something sooner or later.

Hurtling towards the ground, Dawn left the barrage behind. Free of the fear of being turned into a tin of chopped meat, she once again studied the icons on her faceplate. All the little flashing red lights were gone now replaced by cool, relaxing greens that told her she was fine and her suit was undamaged. Next she looked to see how the drop was progressing; it didn't look as bad as she'd at first thought. About half of the battalion were still in formation, while the other half were scattered widely around them. If the battalion's drop looked like anything it looked like the shot pattern from a shotgun cartridge. Next, Dawn tried to work out where she was. By increasing the area covered by the map reflected on her face plate, she saw that the rest of the battalion were five miles south west of the city and about eight miles from their objective. This distance could be covered in about ten or fifteen minutes using their grav packs, but... But it would use up about ten percent of each Marine's power and go-juice. As long as they were relieved either later today or early the next this wouldn't be a problem. But what were the chances of things actually going to plan? It was obvious that something had gone very wrong and there was no telling where the rest of the division would come down. It was also pretty obvious that the Star Force pre-landing bombardment hadn't been anywhere near as effective as everyone had hoped.

Looking at her altimeter again, Dawn was shocked to find that she was only about a thousand feet up, how had that happened? Looking around, she picked out a landing spot in a field surrounded on three sides by medium sized trees. Deciding to pop her main chute at about four hundred feet, Dawn knew that this would slow her sufficiently so she could jettison the chute at about fifty feet allowing her to land using her grav pack. Searching her surroundings for any sign of the Shedu, she saw none. Her eye drifted back to her altimeter to see the numbers whizz by as they counted down towards zero. At three-eighty-four feet Dawn popped her main chute. The great, near invisible canopy boomed open above her head jerking her upright and slowing her to a mere twenty-miles-an-hour in a matter of seconds.

Taking her M-TAR off her back with her right hand, Dawn's left hovered over her harness release button. The figures on her altimeter crawled towards 'fifty' as she hung there under the great, gossamer-like umbrella of her chute; she imagined hundreds of Shedu who were right at that moment drawing a bead on her as she floated helplessly towards the ground. When the time came, Dawn almost didn't notice the figures on her altimeter click over to 'fifty'. Punching her release button, she felt her harness fall away from her suit as she started to fall again. However, before she could pick up any speed she'd powered up her grav unit and descended gently to the ground. Almost as her feet touched the long, lush grass that covered the field, she heard Captain Marvin's voice come over her comms as she calmly started to issue orders. Officers were always out of the shuttles first, so when a Marine landed there was always someone there to tell her what to do. Crouching in the grass watching for any sign of Shedu, Dawn listened as Captain Marvin ordered everyone to form on her. Looking at the icons on her faceplate, she saw that the Captain was about five-hundred yards to her north and east.

Just as Dawn was about to jump and give her jets a little nudge, she had second thoughts. If they were so far out of position that they'd need their jets to get to the objective, it was probably best not to use up fuel on short hops. Turning in the direction of the captain, she set off at a fast trot, pushing her way through the undergrowth around the trees and jumping over hedges and fences. At a distance the farmland around her still looked neat and well ordered. Up close, however, she could see how it had not been tending by either human or robotic hands in some weeks. Vaulting over a hedge, Dawn found herself surrounded by a pack of worker Shedu harvesting the plants that were growing in the field. Triggering her rifle, Dawn shot down the Shedu; the worker's deaths meant there'd be a little less food for the warriors to eat and the battle might not go on as long as it could have. Trotting between the dead workers, Dawn continued on towards where the Captain had set up his temporary HQ. As she got closer to the Captain's location, she noticed more and more Marines coming in from the surrounding fields. However, it didn't take her long to realise that there weren't quite as many around as there should be; Dawn started to look for her section mates.

“Everyone, ground and freeze,” Captain Marvin ordered over the company net, once everyone was down and still she started to explain what had happened. “As you might have noticed we seem to have drifted off target, but we've still got a job to do.” the captain paused for a moment, “Okay, company scouts are to make best speed towards the objective under Sergeant-Major Bailey. Once at the bridge you're to hold it until the main force comes up to relieve you...First section form on me, the rest of First Platoon...”

Dawn listened as Captain Marvin gave orders to the rest of her platoon, obviously first section was going to spend its time following the Captain around, Dawn wondered if she'd get to see any combat other than shooting a few workers this trip. Very soon Captain Marvin gave the order to 'go'. Looking around Dawn saw scout suits lift off from the fields and shoot off in the direction of Easthill. Climbing to her feet, Dawn jogged on towards where the Captain stood in the corner of another field. Just as she arrived, Riko, Kate and Carol all appeared from different directions.

“First section, present or accounted for,” Riko announced after she'd checked that everyone was all right.

“Well done Corporal,” Marvin replied, “just wait here while I try to contact battalion.”

“What the hells going on?” Carol asked over the squawk-net once the captain had gone off net to talk with Major Koehler.

“Fecked if I know,” Riko replied with an armoured shrug, “anyone see anything as they came down?”

“Only that we are way off target,” Dawn announced, “about eight miles off target.”

“Crap,” Kate chimed in, “I hate walking.”

0=0=0=0

Flying low and fast, Sergeant-major Bailey kept one eye on the locations of her scouts and another on the fuel state of her grav pack. This sort of low altitude, high speed flight ate up fuel almost as quickly as hovering. But, they needed to get to that bridge, the rest of the battalion were landing to the south of them and any moment now the Shedu would realise what was happening and they'd start to flap across that bridge. The Shedu had set up their main positions to the north of the River Dudwell where the ground was slightly higher and drier. The Dudwell formed a good east/west barrier where the battalion and the rest of the division could land safe from any serious enemy interference. The bridge at Easthill gave the Marines a perfect opportunity to degrade the Shedu forces before the main body of the division advanced, crossed over the river and fell on the Shedu flanks and rear, hopefully cutting them off from reinforcements and destroying them in detail.

Glancing around, Bailey saw that they'd now entered the outskirts of the town. Out here the damage to buildings wasn't too bad. Some streets hardly appeared to have been touched by the Shedu attack. The Shedu had attacked without warning in the first few days of the war. There'd been a short but accurate bombardment that took out most of Queen Mary's World's planetary defences. Next the Shedu had landed in huge numbers overwhelming the local ground forces. It was only in places like central Easthill that the fighting had been particularly fierce.

Flying along the centre of a wide street, Bailey looked at all the stalled ground cars abandoned where their operators had left them, there'd obviously been an attempt by the local population to flee the area once the fighting had started. But from the weapon's damage to the vehicles and the traffic jams at major junctions, Bailey guessed that not many people had made it out using their personnel transport. Of course there were no remains left in the street. No doubt the Shedu workers had policed up the bodies along with any survivors and herded them into their mobile extermination chambers.

Now they were within a mile of the bridge the damage to the buildings was a lot more severe, swinging around a junction, Bailey got her first real glimpse of the bridge, she was amazed that it was still intact. Ordering the five scouts with her to take up positions on either side of the road this side of the bridge, Bailey flew on and landed where the bridge joined the road leading into the town. Standing there, Bailey consulted the map on her face plate and the ground in front of her. The river was at least six-hundred yards wide at this point. It got wider to the west while to the east it remained about the same width for about twenty miles up stream. The Shedu weren't going to outflank them here for some time and they weren't capable of flying across the river. The opposite side of the river was mainly flat open fields with a few trees and houses dotted about, the terrain afforded no real cover for several miles. The road continued on the opposite side of the river as straight as a dye until it disappeared into the morning mist.

Just as Bailey was about to turn away and pick her own fighting position, she noticed something squat and grey skitter from behind a stand of trees about a mile away on the other side of the river. Watching she dialled up the magnification on her face plate. Sure enough a Shedu war machine swam into view. The machine moved on six legs while its great pincers grasped at the air in front of it. Bailey started to wonder how deep the river was at this point and whether the machine could swim it or walk across the bottom. Jumping into the air as a second war machine joined the first, Bailey started to send a contact report to Captain Marvin.

“Nine-Actual, this is Nine-Alpha, contact, grid five-two-nine-zero-seven-four, time now, two spider tanks, am observing, over.”

“Nine-Actual, roger that, I'll be at your location in figures ten, over.”

“Nine-Alpha, received,” Bailey came into land on the roof of a burnt out office block, she turned to look back across the river, “reference my last, now three spider tanks and warriors in swarm strength moving towards the bridge, will engage as they cross the bridge, over.”

“Roger that,” Captain Marvin replied, “I'll be at your location in figures seven, keep you head down Sergeant-Major, over.”

“Nine-Alpha, wilco...out,” Bailey switched to the squawk-net so she could talk to her scouts, “Okay, ladies here they come, pick your targets and fire on my order and whatever you do don't blow up that that bridge!”

0=0=0=0


	11. Chapter 11

**Easthill.**

By the time Dawn and the rest of first section had got to the bridge, Sergeant-Major Bailey and the scouts had defeated the first Shedu attempt to cross the bridge. Taking up a position on top of a building that overlooked the bridge, Dawn and her buddies could see that one of the six legged war machines had actually managed to cross the river before being destroyed. Another lay in a crumpled mass of half melted metal on the approach road to the bridge while the third was semi-submerged in the river itself. Around the three machines lay hundreds of dead Shedu warriors. One of the scouts, L/Cpl Koenig, had been killed and Marine O'Shea was seriously injured. Sergeant Hoffman, first platoon, platoon sergeant, had O'Shea taken out of her suit so she could more easily be cared for and an aid station was set up in the cellar of a ruined apartment block. No one was likely to be casevaced for some time, it appeared the Star Force was experiencing higher than expected casualties from intense Shedu ground fire.

“Listen up people,” Riko's voice came over the squawk-net making everyone turn to look at her, “just got our orders from the Captain...”

Dawn could feel her excitement grow as she waited for Riko to tell her what their mission was going to be.

“Captain says we're rearguard...” Riko began only to be interrupted by Dawn.

“What!?”

“What?” Riko turned to face Dawn, “You gotta problem?”

“Yeah,” Dawn replied firmly, “I've got a problem; how am I supposed to burn Shedu if we're rearguard?”

“Ask the Captain next time you see her, kid,” Riko gave a power armoured shrug, “but I'm guessing you won't have to wait for long before ya get your wish.”

“Yeah, Dawn,” this was Kate speaking now, “you got a Shedu up ya ass or something?”

“Look,” Carol added, “I'm not gonna complain if we stay on rearguard duty forever.”

“Sorry people,” Dawn replied a little less stridently.

“Like I say, kid,” Riko repeated her assessment, “I guessing we'll get our fair share of Shedu before too long, okay, follow me, on the ready line Marines!”

With those words, Riko stepped off the roof of the building and dropped fifty feet before powering up her grav pack.

“Show off,” Dawn mutter darkly as she followed her section leader over the side of the block.

Turning to each other, Kate and Carol exchanged shrugs before jumping. After dropping like stones towards the surface, Dawn and the others took control of their descent and soon found themselves in amongst the ruined streets. As far as Dawn could see about eighty percent of the buildings were either ruins or had received significant damage. The fighting around the bridge must have been incredibly intense. Everywhere there were fire blackened walls and melted metal, plastic and glass. Ground vehicles lay in almost unrecognisable shapes in what had once been wide, tree lined streets; the trees were now little more than blacked stumps. Of bodies, either human, Shedu or animal there was no sign; if the Shedu were good at anything they were good at clearing a battle field.

“Hold it, guys,” Riko grounded and came to a halt, “this is were we set up.”

Dawn saw that they were standing at the junction of two roads, one heading north-south the other east-west.

“The Captain wants us to set up on the north side of the street,” Riko gestured to a number of ruined and damaged buildings, “she's expecting any trouble to come from the south...” Riko paused for a breath, “...unfortunately that's also the direction the girls from division will come from. So, make sure its a Shedu you shoot not one of our girls, roger that so far?”

“Roger,” Dawn, Kate and Carol chorused.

“Cool...” Riko started to give her orders, “...okay I want, Kate left flank, Carol on the right, me an' Dawnie in the middle, one hundred yards spacing, okay? Okay...an' careful with ya jump juice we don't know how long we've gotta make it last. I'll be along to check out your positions in a while, on the move Marines!”

Dawn stood for a moment watching as Kate and Carol shot off towards the flanks, she was distracted when Riko called to her.

“Hey, Dawnie,” Riko pointed to a huge pile of rubble that looked as if it might have been an office block, “you set up in there, but first pop ya face plate I need to talk to you...”

“Okay,” Dawn opened her face plate; she could smell the dusty air and maybe a little smoke other wise the air was fresh and bracing, “what's up?”

“Look,” Riko came to stand in front of Dawn, “just so y'know; I spoke to the Captain before we set out an' she didn't say much but reading between the lines an'all we're in deep shit.”

“How deep?” Dawn wanted to know.

“Just under ya bottom lip deep,” Riko replied darkly, “looks like everything in this sector has gone to rat shit. Shedu resistance has been a lot more effective than anyone guessed...”

“Crap,” Dawn breathed as she felt the sinking feeling in her stomach.

“Chances are division ain't gonna break through,” Riko explained, “they've got their own set of problems, looks like there's more Shedu south of the river than anyone realised...”

“What was the Star Force doing?” Dawn wanted to know, “Shouldn't recon have picked up the Shedu moving into position?”

“Looks like they were all in deep, shielded bunkers,” Riko explained and sighed heavily, “Look, I'm telling you this in case I get scragged you'll be in charge.”

“HA!” Dawn laughed bitterly, “By that time I'll probably be in charge of myself if I haven't been scragged too.”

“Whatever,” Riko said quietly, “I just wanted you to know, okay?”

“Okay,” Dawn nodded before closing her faceplate again, she turned to look at the great pile of rubble behind her, “I better go dig in.”

“An' I better find out what Kate and Carol are doin',” shutting her own faceplate, Riko jumped into the air and flew off in the direction Kate had taken five minutes earlier.

0=0=0=0

It was dark now and looking at her chronometer, Dawn saw that it was almost twenty-one-hundred hours, she yawned. Having been awake since about five o'clock that morning she was wondering how they'd manage to get any sleep. Yes, they'd all be able to fall asleep instantly having been hypnotically programmed to fall into a deep sleep on the word of command, but with only four people in the section they'd only be able to sleep one at a time and then only for a couple of hours.

A loud explosion from the direction of the bridge caused, Dawn to look over her shoulder. Of course all she saw were ruins, the section was too far away to see what was happening on the bridge. Even expanding the view on her HUD only gave her a vague idea of what was going down behind her, so she didn't even bother to look. Instead she refocused herself on the ruins on the other side of the street. Just as she was deciding that there was nothing to see there either, she heard the warning chimes of her proximity sensors. When she’d first taken up her position in the ruins she'd been able to take the time to plant some of the pea sized sensors the Alliance used in the ruins across the street from her position.

She only had a few of the tiny sensor packages and they only detected, sound, movement and changing light levels, but it looked like something had sent them off. No sooner had the pea-sensors detected what appeared to be movement in one location other sensors picked up sound and movement in half a dozen other locations all on the other side of the street. Gripping her M-TAR more tightly, Dawn brought the weapon up to her shoulder. The weapon's sight was slaved to her HUD, and a section of her HUD readout changed to show the view her weapon’s sight was looking at. The weapon's sighting sensors were finer than her HUDs so she saw the Shedu warrior that her HUD had missed straight away.

“Hello all One-One call-signs this is One-One-Alpha, contact, now, my location Shedu in unknown numbers preparing to engage, over!”

Centring her aiming pipper on the small section of Shedu she could see, Dawn heard her proximity alert start to sound continuously as her sensor peas started to pick up a lot of movement.

“All One-One call-signs,” Dawn gasped excitedly, “this is One-One-Alpha, ref my last, now large numbers of Shedu one hundred yards to my front, will engage as soon as they break cover, over.”

“One-One, stay frosty Alpha,” Riko's voice came calmly over the section net, “I'll be at you're location in figures three.”

Of course the Shedu had chosen to attack while Riko was out on the flank checking on Carol.

“Hello, One-One, this is One-One-Charlie,” Kate's voice broke into the radio chatter, “contact, now, my location, unknown number of Shedu two hundred yards to my right-front, am observing, over”

“All, One-One call-signs,” Riko replied urgently, “this is One-One, looks like we're gonna be attacked any...!”

An almighty explosion to Dawn's left made her flinch down inside her armour and momentarily overloaded her external microphones. The ground shook and debris shifted and fell to the ground all around her.

“WHAT THE FECK WAS THAT!?” Carol yelled over the squawk-net, followed seconds later by the call of, “Shedu! Shedu! HUNDREDS OF ‘EM!”

By now Dawn's external mikes had recovered enough to pick up the sound of Carol's M-TAR firing rapidly from her right. Looking up, Dawn was just in time to see the first wave of Shedu start to flap and hop across the street towards her.

“Shedu! AM ENGAGING!” Dawn yelled over the squawk-net as she opened fire with her rifle. 

In an instant the street was full of high velocity metal as Shedu rounds sort out Dawn's position. Ducking down as lumps of concrete flew up into the air at the touch of the Shedu bullets, Dawn crawled backwards until she was out of the line of fire. Taking a grenade she pulled the pin and tossed it over her barricade. In the months since the first battles with the aliens, the Shedu had improved their personnel weapons. They still used the assault shotgun like weapons but now they fired an armour piercing discarding sabot round which was quite capable of punching through a Marine's armour. Luckily for the Alliance's Marines the Shedu weapons were still very short ranged compared to the M-TAR.

“Share that amongst ya!” she called as she started to crawl to her left.

The grenade exploded causing the torrent of kinetic penetrators to lessen for a second or two. Popping up from her new position, Dawn saw the street littered with Shedu dead. However, more Shedu were leaving the shelter of the ruins opposite. Lifting her rifle over the large lump of concrete that made up her new firing position, Dawn triggered her weapon and watched as more Shedu died. Some exploded from hydrostatic shock, some staggered on a few more yards before slumping to the ground, others simply fell out of the air. Unfortunately it didn't seem to matter how many Shedu, Dawn shot down there always appeared to be more. Even firing on full automatic, Dawn just couldn't kill enough Shedu to stop some of them from crossing the street and taking up positions in the ruins either side of her. Usually the Shedu command seemed willing to expend the lives of hundreds of warriors if there was a chance of wiping out the Marines on this side of the river. The Shedu command knew that they so vastly outnumbered the forces of humanity that losing even a thousand warriors for one marine was a net victory to their side. It took a year to train a Marine, a Shedu warrior could be replaced in a month or two.

Watching as her fire brought down dozens of Shedu, Dawn ducked down instinctively as a missile flew over her head, this had to be Riko. A second later the missile impacted and Dawn found herself cowering down behind her concrete barricade as hell erupted on the other side of the street. A hard white light invaded Dawn's refuge as the mini-nuke exploded. Fire washed over her as walls, already teetering on the verge of collapse, gave up their struggle against gravity and fell all around her.

“FECK SAKE Riko!” Dawn cried out, “WATCH WHERE YOU'RE SHOOTING THAT THING!”

“Watch ya front,” Riko ordered calmly, “that'll only hold them off for a while...”

Sure enough when Dawn peered over the top of her cover she saw a few burning Shedu stagger out into the open to eventually slump down dead before they gained her side of the street. Raising her gaze, Dawn saw across the blasted area of the now flattened ruins as a long line of Shedu warriors made there way across the radioactive waste land towards her in long ungainly bounds.

“Crap!” Dawn cursed as she brought this new force under fire.

No sooner had the first Shedu began to fall than the twinkling light from Shedu machine-guns lit up the night and rounds started to impact around Dawn's position by the hundreds. Individually a Shedu bullet was no great threat to a Marine. But, the Shedu's machine-guns fired around a thousand rounds a minute and there had to be dozens of Shedu out there all firing at her. Retreating as her cover was pulverised to concrete dust, Dawn got out of the line of fire. If she stayed in one place the Shedu would eventually pinpoint her position and turn her into a very expensive sieve. Rapid movement was her only real defence, thinking, 'to hell with conserving fuel', she jumped, and shot straight upwards. Coming to a hover about a hundred feet above her old fighting position, Dawn looked down to see the Shedu swam forward.

Shifting the angle of her body slightly she moved slowly over the Shedu horde as they continued to fire into the ruins, they obviously hadn't noticed she'd moved. Using her left hand, Dawn dispensed a hand full of fire pills and scattered them over the Shedu below. The little yellow and red pills fell onto the Shedu and burst into brilliantly, white hot, flame for an instant. The fire pills generated so much heat in those first couple of seconds that they often burnt right through a Shedu. More often however, they set the Shedu on fire. The Shedu would start to panic as the warrior realised it was as good as dead.

Moments before it died the Shedu would revert to an almost mindless killing machine that struck out at its fellows as the red and yellow flames reduced its body to a smouldering husk. During its death throws a warrior could spread the fire to dozens of its fellows. Very soon the area below Dawn was a sea of struggling, fighting, burning Shedu. Giving her grav pack a nudge, Dawn flew deeper into Shedu held territory. Here she found more Shedu waiting for the fiery holocaust to clear before continuing their advance. Once again she scattered a couple of handfuls of fire pills over the Shedu below her. Bursting into flame the Shedu started to writhe and fight amongst themselves. Only a few bursts of wildly inaccurate fire were sent in her direction. Dodging out of the way and swooping down into the cover of the ruins themselves, Dawn tossed a grenade behind her before turning and heading back to her own side of the street. A warning chime sounded from her ear-bug making her look up to see brilliantly, bright, streaks of light coming down from the heavens.

“Damn-it!” Dawn cursed as she headed for the ground and hopefully cover, “Why does Star Force chose now to open up with an orbital bombardment?”

No one answered and Dawn was only just in time not to be blown off her feet by the impact of the projectiles from the twelve inch mass drivers of a warship's main batteries.

0=0=0=0

Looking back on that horrific night in Easthill, Dawn could only remember it as series of disconnected images of explosions. Star Force rained hell down on the Shedu, but they kept on advancing into the maelstrom of fire and destruction. Dawn could remember bouncing from one position to another as she tried desperately to stop the warriors who'd survived the Star Force bombardment and were intent on working their way through the ruins to the bridge. Thanks to the heroic efforts of first section very few Shedu made it through.

“Ugh!” Dawn woke up with a start; grabbing for her rifle she aimed it out over the moonscape in front of her, breathing a sigh of relief she saw no hordes of Shedu advancing towards her, she was safe...for now.

Pushing herself a little further out of the hole where she'd fallen asleep, Dawn saw the destruction all around her. Before the battle had started Easthill had been a ruin. Now, less than twenty-four hours later, the once peaceful city was merely a smear of smashed up concrete. Looking out from her hole, Dawn couldn't see anything standing more than a couple of feet high. All the ruined buildings had been reduced to mounds of pulverised rubble between the craters left by the hits scored by the Star Force's mass drivers. Of the Shedu, Dawn could only see the occasional broken body or smashed up weapon. Turning her head and sucking on her water tube, Dawn sighed with relief, her mouth had felt like it had been full of evil tasting paste. Once she'd slaked her thirst she turned her head and sucked on her food tube. Swallowing a couple of mouthfuls of the oatmeal-like 'food', Dawn started to feel a little more human and awake, this was probably something to do with the mild stimulant in the food she'd just taken on board; whatever the reason she felt much better now. Climbing completely out of her hole, Dawn stood up and looked around a little more. 

Behind her the piles of rubble were too high for her to see very much, she certainly couldn't see the bridge where the rest of her company was deployed. To the south the destruction was even worse than it had appeared to be from her hole. The pulverised rubble seemed to stretch on for as far as she could see; Dawn could remember seeing old pictures from World War One where great swaths of land had been turned into a muddy moonscapes. But that sort of destruction had taken years of fighting to achieve, this had taken one night...wasn't progress wonderful? Stamping down hard on these feelings of hopelessness, she reminded herself that it was the Shedu who'd started the war and all this destruction was ultimately their fault.

“Hi kid,” Riko's voice came over the squawk-net to Dawn's ears, “you still alive then?”

“Yeah,” Dawn turned to look for Riko but couldn't see her anywhere amongst the destruction, “take more than a few thousand Shedu and Star Force to kill me.”

“Yeah,” Riko chuckled.

“Where are you?” Dawn wanted to know, “In fact where's everyone? I can't see anyone on my HUD.”

“How about now?” Riko called as her icon appeared on Dawn's HUD.

Turning again, Dawn saw Riko's armoured suit climb out from under a large slab of concrete about fifty yards to her south west.

“The concrete was probably blocking my signal...” Riko paused as she stood up straight and stretched, “...man! I'm getting too old for this crap! Seen Carol or Kate?”

“Not since last night,” Dawn admitted; her mind flashed back to the previous night.

Remembering the explosions as they ripped through the dark, the flashing images of Shedu firing at her and her own return fire; Dawn remembered seeing Kate (at least she thought it was Kate, it might have been Carol) fighting hard on her right flank. The last thing she remembered was the 'danger close' warning as the next salvo of twelve inch kinetic bolts slammed into the ground. The ground had heaved under her feet as great fans of concrete rubble were thrown into the dust laden air, she'd dived for the feeble protection of the ground, the last thing she remembered before the lights went out was of an armoured suit being tossed through the air like a child's toy.

“I think someone might be over there,” Dawn gestured vaguely to the east.

“Hold on Dawn,” Riko's voice came over the comms again, “I'm getting something from company.”

Waiting for Riko to finish talking to 'company', Dawn took a moment to check herself out. Her HUD indicated that almost all her jump juice had been used up and she was down to about fifty percent of suit power. Several of her external microphones were out of action as was most of her sensor package, she'd no remote sensors left. However, her HUD was still working and she didn't seem to be having any problems with her comms. Turning at the sound of footsteps crunching through the desolation behind her, Dawn found Riko standing a couple of yards behind her.

“Well?” Dawn asked wanting to know what their orders were.

“Girl you look like crap,” Riko breathed.

“Hey,” Dawn replied defensively, “you don't look so good yourself.”

Riko's suit was pock marked from the multiple hits made by Shedu bullets; Dawn realised she must look the same.

“Looks like we're all going to need new suits when this is over,” Riko observed quietly.

“I just hope we're both alive to need them,” Dawn pointed out, “so what's the news?”

“Okay,” Riko sighed heavily, “both Captain Marvin and Sergeant-Major Bailey got scragged last night with about half of the company...”

“Crap!” Dawn felt her legs turn weak and she slumped to the ground, “You sure?”

“Yeah,” Riko nodded inside her helmet the gesture was lost on Dawn who couldn't see it, “Sergeant Hoffmann's in charge now. They had to blow the bridge but we're still cut off and surrounded, looks like the Shedu got across the river further up stream after all.”

“So holding the bridge was pointless?”

“Looks that way,” Riko admitted, “no one's heard from battalion or division since last night and most of the Star Force is on the other side of the planet.”

“Why?” Dawn demanded.

“Something about heavy Shedu fire from the ground and ships,” Riko joined Dawn on the ground.

“So what now?” Dawn accepted that she might die in battle, but she'd hoped it would be in the heat of combat and not because she'd been deserted.

Long ago, Dawn had decided that the Shedu would never take her, she'd programmed her suit to give her a five minute warning before her power cells gave out and she was trapped inside. Five minutes was more than enough time for her to take off her helmet and kill herself. A grenade stuffed down inside her armour would do the job, or a flamer in the mouth...she'd be dead before she even realised she was gone.

“Hoffmann wants us back at the main position,” Riko said her voice sounding very tired, “if anyone comes for us that's where they'll look.”

“Kate? Carol?” Dawn glanced out over the fields of destruction.

“Hoffmann said search for five minutes, but don't waste any fuel or power we'll need it for fighting.”

“Okay,” Dawn agreed reluctantly, although she knew it was the sensible thing to do it still felt like she'd be deserting her friends.

As it turned out five minutes was more than enough time to find Kate and Carol, or at least what remained of their suits.

“Okay,” Riko said quietly as she looked down into the huge crater that held the two smashed up suits, “I'll take the DNA samples you check them out for spare fuel, power and ammo.”

“This feels wrong,” Dawn said as she knelt down next to one of the smashed suits; the body inside the suit was too badly crushed for her to tell who it was. “Its like robbing the dead.”

“Don't sweat it Dawn,” Riko replied, she'd had to do this sort of thing a couple of times before, “think of it as ya buddies lending ya a hand.”

“I'm trying,” Dawn admitted as she took a power cell from one of the destroyed suits, “but it still doesn't feel right.”

The two survivors remained silent as they completed their gristly task. By the time they'd finished they'd salvaged a couple of spare magazines and a few grenades and fire pills, they'd also been able to charge up their power cells a little but there'd been no fuel for their jets. Climbing out of the crater Riko and Dawn paused on the rim and turned to stand facing their fallen comrades. Coming to attention, Riko and Dawn straightened up.

“Present arms,” Riko ordered quietly; two hands rose to salute the fallen for a moment, “At ease...okay, Marine lets get outta here...on the ready line...”

“Sorry I'm not flying anywhere,” Dawn explained, “I've only got fumes left.”

“Okay,” Riko shrugged, “lets walk.”

0=0=0=0


	12. Chapter 12

**Easthill.**

The situation back at the bridge position was desperate. The battalion had been under strength when they jumped from the Maitland They'd lost some Marines on the way down, now they'd had the heart ripped out of them. Of the battalion that had actually reached the bridge, forty-four were dead, another eighteen were wounded and thirty or more were missing presumed dead. By salvaging power, and ammo from the dead and wounded each Marine had an almost full ammo load and enough power to last them another twenty-four to thirty-six hours, depending on how heavily the Shedu pressed them. Everyone was desperately short of fuel for their jets.

The lack of go-juice meant that when the Shedu attacked, which was inevitable, the battalion would be tied to their positions and unable to move around. Not only would this seriously hamper their ability to counter attack, it would also allow the Shedu to zero in on each Marine position and destroy them one by one. But whatever the consequences the battalion would fight and go on fighting until they were either dead or someone came for them...it was what the Marines did...fight.

0=0=0=0

Settling in in her fighting hole, Dawn prepared to 'buckle for her dust' like she'd never had to before. Riko was about twenty-five yards to her right while, Marine Hammond was about the same distance to her left; she and Riko were now part of second section, third platoon...in fact everyone in the platoon was now part of second section there hadn't been enough survivors from their own platoon to even make a full section. Checking her gear one last time, Dawn found she had about three handfuls of fire pills, four grenades and two fifty round mags for her M-TAR plus a half full one actually attached to her weapon. Having not touched her hand flamer she still had a full cylinder of fuel loaded and a spare; she expected to be using that a lot when the Shedu got close. Taking one of the grenades she clipped it to her suit near her neck. That was 'her' grenade, the one she'd use to end it all when the time came. When the time came (not 'if' but 'when', Dawn knew she was going to die today or tomorrow) she knew her last thoughts would be for her sister, her mom and for her friends this was about 'family' nothing more nothing less. No one put their lives on the line for the right to vote or to hold public office or for a better standard of living; it was always for, 'The Motherland', or, 'St George and England', or, 'For Old Virginia'.

Pushing these thoughts into the background, Dawn took hold of her rifle and eased herself up so she could see out of her hole. Looking across the crater field, Dawn checked her arcs of fire. Her area of responsibility went from the weirdly shaped piece of metal that stuck up forlornly from the rubble on her left to the melted stump of a wall on her right. Her field of fire overlapped with Riko's and Hammond's, if one of them was killed they could still cover their arcs of fire. Raising her gaze a little, Dawn scanned the desolation to her front. It was important that she was familiar with the layout of the ground in front of her. In this way she would be able to pick out any changes and changes often meant Shedu. As she scanned the ground about three-hundred yards in front of her, Dawn dialled up the magnification on her HUD as she studied what looked like the twisted remains of a ground car that lay half in a crater. Her eyes narrowed as she thought she spotted something move. It could just be some loose concrete dust sliding down into the crater or maybe it was a Shedu scout trying to sneak up on the battalion's line of resistance.

With her HUD's magnification dialled up at far as it would go, Dawn still couldn't see clearly into the crater. Lifting her rifle so it was pointing at the suspected target, Dawn slaved her weapon's sight to her HUD. Once again the circle that showed what her rifle was looking at jumped into existence on her HUD, the aiming pipper flashed redly as it told her she hadn't got a target. Moving her rifle slightly to the right the pipper suddenly went solid red as it locked onto a target. Watching carefully, Dawn saw what she thought might be the tip of a Shedu's wing. Her aiming pipper went a deeper red as the Shedu moved and exposed its head.

“Shedu!” Dawn cried as she mashed down on the trigger of her rifle; bullets sped towards the target and the Shedu threw up its arms as the rounds hit it full in the face blowing its head clean off. 

“What's going on Summers?” Sergeant Hoffmann called urgently.

“Shedu scout, Sarge,” Dawn replied, “about three hundred yards directly to my front.”

“Okay,” Hoffmann paused, as she was obviously checking his HUD to see exactly where Dawn was, “right I got it...did you see...”

“CONTACT!”

“Shedu!”

“HERE THEY COME!”

Suddenly the comms net was full of warnings as the ground about four-hundred yards from the Wildcat's positions appeared to come alive with Shedu. Hoffmann forgotten, Dawn looked out of her hole to see the Shedu mass advance like a huge grey wave that spat fire and death.

“Shedu, TO YOUR FRONT, FOUR-HUNDRED,” Hoffmann's voice came over the net drowning out everyone else, “RAPID, INDEPENDENT... **FIRE!** ”

It wasn't that anyone needed to be told what to do, but the sound of Hoffmann's voice seemed to steady everyone. It certainly steadied Dawn, now when she stood up to fire at the advancing Shedu horde she did so calmly and with cool, deadly efficiency.

0=0=0=0

The first wave of the Shedu attack broke about two-hundred yards from the Marine's position. One moment there appeared to be hundreds of Shedu advancing towards the beleaguered Marines, the next there were none. However, Dawn and her sister Marines didn't get much in the way of a rest-bite. No sooner had they stopped firing than another wave of Shedu started out from the point where the first wave had gone to ground. Firing on semi-automatic to conserve her rounds, Dawn played her rifle fire over the Shedu horde as it advanced towards her at a hoping, flapping, run. Firing wildly in return the Shedu just kept on coming. Once again Shedu numbers seemed to be making up for their lack of subtly. Although each individual Shedu was firing wildly there were so many Shedu firing that some rounds were always on target. Standing in her fighting hole, Dawn registered that her cover was slowly being eaten away, the concrete rubble was gradually disappearing like ice in the sun. Clouds of concrete dust rose around her position. By cycling her HUD through to thermal imaging, Dawn was still able to spot her enemy and engage them with deadly accurate fire.

On her left, Riko was still firing, but on her right Hammond's position had been targeted by several of the Shedu's machine guns. There'd been an incredibly bright flash from the direction of Hammond's hole, after which Dawn found herself having to cover at least part of Hammond's arc of fire. Now having to split her fire over a wider arc, the Shedu were able to creep forward until they were about fifty yards away from Dawn's position. Forced to take cover at the bottom of her hole, Dawn waited for the inevitable Shedu rush that would bring them into what was left of the company's position. Any second now, she expected to see a Shedu's ugly face appear at the entrance to her hole. When that happened she knew she'd be dead in seconds. As she well knew not even her armour could save her from Shedu bullets at point blank range.

“DAWN!?” Riko's voice came to her over the squawk-net, “DAWN!?”

“What y'want?” Dawn replied stopping herself from yelling and trying to keep calm.

“You okay in there?” Riko asked, her voice full of concern.

“Yeah I'm alive...just,” Dawn replied.

“Wondered why you weren't putting out rounds,” the sound of Shedu penetrators plinking against Riko's suit came clearly to Dawn over the comms link.

“Had to duck down,” Dawn explained, “the Shedu have me pin-pointed I need to move.”

“Okay,” Riko called back, “count to three, toss a grenade out and run! I'll give you covering fire.”

“Okay,” Dawn took one of her three grenades and prepared to throw it out of her hole, “ready?”

“Ready.”

“One...two...three!” on three Dawn tossed the grenade out of her hole.

Just as the grenade exploded, Dawn jumped and kicked in her jets using a little of her precious fuel to help get her out of her hole. Landing a couple of yards away from the edge of her old position, she took a look at the Shedu before she started to run. The Shedu were no more than twenty-yards away now. Although her grenade had blown a bloody circle in their ranks, the surviving Shedu were already climbing over the dead bodies of their comrades in their eagerness to get at the lone Marine.

“COVER ME!” Riko yelled as Dawn took up position behind a slab of concrete that lay at a crazy angle on top of a pile of lesser rubble.

“Ready!” Dawn fired into the mass of Shedu often killing two or three Shedu with one bullet. 

“GRENADE!” Riko yelled again as a baseball sized object was thrown from her hole.

The grenade landed in the middle of a group of Shedu who were advancing towards Riko's position. Exploding the grenade's fragments slashed through the bodies of the surrounding aliens cutting them up into roughly butcher lumps of Shedu meat. A second after the grenade went off, Riko was up and running in her bid to get away from the advancing Shedu. Once more, Dawn pumped bullets into the Shedu mass. But she couldn't kill them all and one Shedu got lucky before Dawn had a chance to shoot it down; a stream of penetrators hit Riko in the back as she ran for safety.

“Riko!?” Dawn screamed as she watched the Shedu rounds hit her friend.

The Shedu bullets smashed up Riko's grav pack sending pieces of metal and plastic flying in all directions. Riko's last reserves of 'go-juice' squirted at high pressure to coat her armour with the highly volatile liquid. Watching, as Riko stumbled on for another couple of paces before crashing to the ground, Dawn let go of her rifle allowing the weapon's tether to pull it back into its carrying position, she drew her hand flamer and prepared to go save her buddy. Jumping out from behind her cover, Dawn threw her penultimate grenade just as a burst of Shedu fire almost knocked her off her feet. Regaining her balance, she started to run towards where Riko had fallen, you always made pick-up on a buddy or got scragged trying. Triggering her hand flamer a Shedu burst into smoky flame at the touch of the chemical fire. For just a moment the hundreds of kinetic penetrators directed in her direction where reduced to mere tens. Firing her mini-flame thrower again, Dawn laughed hysterically as she sent more Shedu to hell. Tossing her last grenade, Dawn ran into the edge of the explosion and slid to a halt next to Riko. Firing her flamer once again to discourage the Shedu from advancing, Dawn quickly checked Riko's medical readouts from the armoured box on the front of her suit. Although, Riko was alive, she must be unconscious.

“Riko!” Dawn yelled as she shook Riko's suit frantically.

“Wot?” Riko replied groggily.

“Get up Riko,” Dawn called as she turned to incinerate more Shedu who were foolishly creeping closer, “Get up before the monsters get you!”

“Shedu?” Riko asked as she pushed herself up into a sitting position, seemingly noticing the Shedu for the first time Riko sat up straight, “Shedu!?” she cried as she pulled her flamer from its housing on her right thigh, “Shedu!”

Scrambling to her feet, Riko joined Dawn in burning down the Shedu as bullets clanged off their armour or cut up the ground at their feet. Forgetting any idea of an orderly military retreat, the two young women ran as they turned to escape the Shedu. Pausing only every few yards to play fire over the advancing monsters, they eventually made it to a crater deep enough to protect them from the Shedu fire.

“Feck it!” Riko cried as she slid down the side of the crater and came to a halt.

“You'll totally get no argument from me,” Dawn agreed as she came to a stop next to her friend, “what now?”

“Hold on,” Riko gasped, “let the old lady get her breath back.”

Turning Riko crawled towards the lip of the crater. Stopping while still out of sight of any Shedu that might be looking in her direction, she fed a fibre optic camera over the lip of the crater. After watching for almost a minute, Riko recovered her camera and let herself slide to the bottom of their new hole.

“Looks like we lost 'em...” Riko explained, “...for now.”

“Yeah...for now,” Dawn lay back and closed her eyes for a moment trying to wipe the horror and hopelessness she felt from her mind.

“Okay,” Riko started to check her weapons, “what ya got kid?”

“Okay,” Dawn opened her eyes and sat up; first she checked her flamer then her rifle, “about a canister and a half of flamer fuel, and fifty rounds for my rifle...what else...I've got maybe two handfuls of fire pills and no grenades.”

“No grenades?” Riko queried as she eyed the weapon attached to Dawn's suit near her neck.

“No grenades,” Dawn replied pointedly, “what about you?”

“Three grenades, no fire pills, no rifle and a flamer with one full cylinder,” Riko replied.

“Not the greatest arsenal in the galaxy,” Dawn replied as she took her spare flamer cylinder from it clips on her left thigh, “here you better take this...so what do we do now?”

“We could strip off our suits an' try to get a tan,” Riko replied as she gestured to the bright blue sky above them, “or we could get back into the war.”

“War?” Dawn sounded puzzled, “There's a war on?”

“Damn right there is,” Riko agreed, “it's here everyday.”

“Okay,” Dawn turned so she could see Riko battered suit and wished she could actually see Riko herself, “I'm totally up for it...better than just lying around here.”

“Thing is,” Riko said slowly, “I don't know if you noticed but I'm getting nothing from the company net.”

“Crap,” Dawn breathed, that meant one of two things, neither of them good; either the company was so badly screwed up that their comms net had gone to hell, or, they were the only two left alive.

“Like you say,” Riko started to get back to her feet, “You'll get no argument from me...”

Riko climbed the side of the crater until she could just see over the lip.

“Shit, crap an' corruption!” Riko cursed as she ducked down out of sight.

“I take it its not good,” Dawn waited for confirmation.

“Worse,” Riko hunkered down and pulled Dawn down next to her, “Shedu...”

“Tell me something new,” Dawn interrupted.

“...hundreds of 'em, but they're not doing anything, I've heard about this.”

“You have?”

“Yeah, sometimes I think the Leader-Shedu or whatever gets overworked and has to leave the warriors on 'stand-by' or something.”

“And this is good because?”

“It'll take 'em a while to come back on line again,” Riko explained rapidly; she reached for Dawn's armoured hand and held it in her own, “How do ya feel about posthumous medals, kid?”

“Way overrated,” Dawn replied, she almost knew what Riko was going to say and found she wasn't that upset about it.

In fact it would almost come as a relief to finally get it all over with, to rest forever to not have to worry about anything any more. 

“Okay, counter-attack?” Dawn asked quietly as she gripped her rifle more tightly.

“That's what doctrine calls for,” Riko agreed; they had no real option with limited weapons, ammunition, power and no fuel for their grav pack's jets they wouldn't last five minutes, they might as well make those minutes count.

“Okay,” Dawn climbed up the slope of the crater wall and readied her rifle, “they better name a couple of High Schools after us.”

“Right on kid,” Riko laid her hand on Dawn's shoulder.

“Been an honour and a privilege serving with you, Riko.” 

“Right back at ya, kid...Dawn,” Riko glanced up at her chronometer, “Time to go...”

Breasting the lip of the crater, Dawn fired into the Shedu who were standing motionless about seventy-five yards in front of her. Cutting down a dozen Shedu with her first burst of fire she ran towards the enemy firing as she went. Only vaguely aware of Riko running next to her, Dawn kept firing bursts into the packed ranks of Shedu cutting them down by the dozen. But it couldn't go on, after only thirty seconds or so the Leader-Shedu in command noticed that his warriors were being attacked. Rapidly the surviving Shedu turned to face their attackers. Lines of penetrators reached out for the two lonely Marines knocking them off their feet. Pushing herself up on her elbows, Dawn brought up her rifle and continued firing. As she picked out targets another part of her mind wondered if this had all been worthwhile, had her life meant anything any second now it would all be over, the account would be balanced and she could rest.

Suddenly the Shedu weren't firing at her any more, they were shooting at something above and behind her. Next there was a sound like a goddess ripping up canvas and the Shedu in front of her disintegrated as a multitude of explosions went off in and around their formation. Trying to turn to see what was happening, Dawn was just in time to be flattened as the tank behind her fired its main armament. The eight inch flachette round ripped into the remains of the Shedu formation scything down aliens by the hundred. The huge tank's sub turrets, mounting 7mm Gatling guns, ripped through the remaining Shedu cutting them down like wheat before a reaper. The monster tank halted just behind where, Riko and Dawn lay as if it was protecting them and Marines flashed by on their grav packs to chase after the now beaten and confused Shedu.

“About freaking time,” Dawn said as a couple of Star Force Corpswomen landed next to herself and Riko.

“We're never late,” one of the Corpswomen replied as she knelt down next to Dawn, “we're always just in the nick of time.”

“That's all I need,” Dawn groaned, “freaking comedians.”

0=0=0=0

It was very quiet back on the Maitland. After Riko and Dawn had been released from sick bay, neither of them had been seriously injured just bruises and exhaustion, they went back to their section bay and sat staring at Kate and Carol's empty bunks. The knowledge that Kate and Carol would be remembered in some garden of remembrance once Queen Mary's World was rebuilt, didn't seem to help. 

The operation to liberate Queen Mary's World was being acclaimed a great success. The Marines and Star Force had kicked Shedu butt. Right at that very moment troops were mopping up the last Shedu by pouring hundreds of gallons of nerve agent down into the Shedu bunker systems. Of course Marines would have to go down and check out the labyrinthine tunnels but it was doubted that any Shedu would remain alive.

The civilian survivors were being rounded up and put into 'relocation' camps where they'd be properly fed, housed and receive much needed medical attention. Marine casualties hadn't been too high in fact, if you discounted the loses received by Sixth Marine Division they were surprisingly light. However, of the seven-thousand women who'd dropped as part of Sixth Division only some two-thousand-five-hundred-and-eighty-two remained. Things had gone wrong for the Sixth from the start. Not only had their drop been scattered all over the countryside there were two big Shedu bases in the drop zone that no one had even suspected had existed. Eventually the Sixth had managed to form a perimeter but that hadn't helped units like Dawn's battalion who'd been stuck out on a limb.

“We better get dressed an' get to work,” Riko announced in a soft voice as she stood up, “these personnel effects won't pack themselves.”

“Yeah sure,” Dawn pushed herself to her feet and was heading towards her locker for a clean uniform when a knock came at the half open hatch.

“Yeah, come in,” Riko called as she wrapped her towel more securely around herself.

In through the hatch climbed a very young looking Star Force Ensign, she looked incredibly uncomfortable as she stood there confronted by two Marines dressed only in towels after coming out of the showers.

“I'm sorry I'll come back later,” she turned to go.

“It's okay Ma'am,” Riko called, “what-cha-want?”

“Erm...” the Ensign didn't appear to know were to look, eventually she gazed at a spot about six inches above Riko's head and tried to ignore Dawn completely as she put on fresh underwear. “I'm Ensign Pulver,” the young officer announced, “the Captain has appointed me temporary Marine Battalion Commander...it's purely for administrative purposes,” Pulver assured them, “and you Corporal Sengupta are my second in command...”

“What!?” Riko couldn't believe her ears, “I mean 'What?' Ma'am?”

“I'm sorry but you're the highest ranking NCO left in the battalion,” Pulver explained, “In fact there's only twenty-eight of you left...not enough to even make a full strength platoon”

“Crap,” Dawn sobbed as she sat down on the bunk that had once belonged to Kate.

“Feck...” Riko added quietly.

“Erm...” Pulver paused before continuing, “...the Captain wished she could be here herself but we're still conducting retrieval missions so she had to stay up on the bridge. She'll get down to see you as soon as she can. In the meantime, anything you need you come to me and I'll approve your requests wherever possible or take them to the Captain.” Pulver paused again and looked at the deck for a moment, “Needless to say the battalion will be disbanded...there's simply not...”

“We understand, Ensign,” Riko said slowly, “any idea where we'll be sent?”

“Captain says they're forming some new units, you can go to one of those if you like, or join an existing one, I'm guessing you can get any posting you want after...”

“Yeah,” Riko glanced down to where Dawn sat, “what y'think, Dawnie?”

“Whatever,” Dawn replied, “all I really want to do is sleep for a week.”

“Yes, right...” Ensign Pulver pulled herself together, “...I'll let you get on...” she started to head towards the hatch but stopped and turned back to face Dawn and Riko, coming to attention she saluted the two Marines, “Remember, anything you want...”

“Thanks, Ensign,” still clutching her towel to her chest, Riko returned the officer's salute.

Alone together, Riko and Dawn watched the hatch for a moment after Ensign Pulver had left the bay.

“Feck,” Riko sighed, this was the second time her unit had been destroyed and she'd escaped without a scratch, “a girl could get to thinking she's jinxed or something.”

“You're not jinxed, Riko,” Dawn put her arm around her friend's shoulder, “its the war, its the Shedu.”

“Yeah,” Riko nodded, “y'right,” she took a deep breath, “like I say there's work to do before we can rest...on the ready line Marine...”

0=0=0=0


	13. Chapter 13

**WD-3767-2, January 3514.**

_Eternal Goddess, grant, we pray  
To all Marines, both night and day   
The courage, honour, strength, and skill   
Their world to serve, your law fulfil   
Be Thou the shield for-evermore   
From every peril to the Corps._

“...three, two, one, wake up Corporal Summers.”

“What!?” Dawn's mind went from being totally asleep to being instantly awake in about two seconds, unfortunately it took her body slightly longer to catch up with her mind, she hated hypnotically induced sleep, “Who...?”

“Mornin' Dawnie,” the pleasantly mom-like voice of her platoon sergeant echoed around inside her helmet, “time to get on the ready line Marine, L-t's got a job for you.”

“Yeah, sure...” Dawn fought down the urge to rub the sleep from her eyes, unless she popped her face plate her hand would never get to her eyes; hopefully the nanites in the suit with her would eat the gunk in her the corner eyes without also chowing down on her eyebrows first.

“Are you awake now?” Platoon Sergeant Oonishi asked after a moment's phase. 

“Yeah I'm okay,” Dawn sat up and looked around and decided she was 'okay', nothing had changed around her and the Shedu weren't attacking.

“Good morning, Corporal Summers,” came the familiar voice of Dawn's platoon leader, Second Lieutenant (and brand new from OCS) Sarah Anne Moore, “how are you this bright fine morning?”

“Fine L-t,” Dawn yawned, “I'm fighting fit...that's like fighting for breath an' fit to drop!”

“Good to hear,” Dawn could hear the smile in the L-t's voice, “because I've got a job for you.”

“You have, Ma'am?” Dawn said aloud, more quietly she muttered, “Oh yippee!”

“I heard that, Corporal,” Moore replied, “but I'll choose to take it as a sign of your overwhelming enthusiasm for the mission I'm about to give you.”

“Of course, L-t, I love the Corps, ever formation a parade, ever pay check a fortune!” Dawn cursed herself for saying what she was thinking, “Okay L-t, what can I do for you today?”

“That's the spirit,” Moore replied, no doubt with a smirk on her face, but as she was a good five hundred yards from Dawn's position she'd never be able to check it out. “I received some bad news from Battalion five minutes ago, it looks like a village about two miles to the front of you present position wasn't evacuated,” Lt Moore explained, “I want you to take your team and check it out.”

“Right, L-t,” Dawn glanced up at the map which was projected onto her face plate by her Head Up Display, “yes, Ma'am I've got it...erm any sign of the Shedu?”

“Oh don't worry about the Shedu,” Moore reassured her, “they're a good six miles further on, I'm pretty sure you'll get no interference from them.”

“Wilco, L-t,” Dawn replied, “I'll get my girls organised to cover any holes and get right on it.”

“No rush, Corporal,” Sarah replied unhurriedly, “any time in the next five minutes will do...good luck, Corporal Summers.”

“Gee thanks,” Dawn muttered after first checking she wasn't speaking over an open comms link, “why me?”

WD-3767-2, or Haven as the locals called it, was a pleasant Earth-like planet with lots of trees and little else of interest. About six years ago, way before the Shedu burst onto the scene, the place was colonised by about fifty-thousand religious cultists who had some pretty weird ideas (didn't all religious cultists?) that only just fell inside the Alliance's laws on hufem rights. The cultists had saved up and bought the planet and set up their own 'planetary state' which was semi-independent of the Alliance. Basically for a small yearly fee, usually paid in minerals, the Havenites got protection from the Alliance without having all the expense of forming their own armed forces which probably couldn't defend the planet and its solar system any way.

This had been fine until the Shedu came on the scene and started to shoot up the Alliance's part of the galaxy. Even then Haven was light years away from any fighting, until the Shedu started a series of deep penetration raids into Alliance space. The intelligence reports that Dawn had read seemed to suggest that this was some sort of diversion by the enemy to draw Alliance forces away from the battle front prior to them launching a major offensive. Diversion or not, these Shedu incursions had to be dealt with, which was why Dawn's new ship, the TASS The Lady Ethelfleda, had been diverted to take on the Shedu landing force on Haven. The 'Lady Ethel' (as her crew and her Marines called her) had arrived shortly after the Shedu had started to land and exterminate the local population. Dawn's new battalion: Third Battalion, Nineteenth Regiment, Twelfth Marine Division, had landed and after evacuating as many of the locals to safe locations on the planet as they could were now moving in to counter-attack. Recon had put Shedu numbers at about twenty-five thousand warriors and about half that number of workers and techs, there didn't appear to be any Demon Kings and no deep bunker systems, so typical of Shedu occupation, had been built. Obviously the Shedu weren't planing on conquering Haven, they just wanted to mess it up...and 'play' with the locals.

Dawn's section was deployed along one side of a valley, she had eight Marines spread out at fifty- yard intervals. Having been told to go down into the valley in front of her and check out this village she'd need to reorganise her section to cover the holes made by her own team's absence. After the fight on Queen Mary's World both Dawn and Riko had been promoted, unfortunately this meant that were split up and sent to different units. Calling up her other fire team leader, Lance Corporal Billie Smith, she told her to shuffle their Marines left and right to cover any gaps.

“...and Billie,” Dawn called, “make sure you've got a good field of fire with your LAG, I know recon says the Shedu are like nowhere, but we all know the Shedu, right?”

“Roger, that, Dawn,” Billie replied.

Listening as her 2i/c reorganised their troops, Dawn turned her attention to her own team.

“Okay ladies,” Dawn began, “if you look at your maps you can see the target at grid 139-959, got that?” there were three affirmative replies, “Kat,” Kat Griffith was Dawn's senior Marine and her LAG gunner, “you and Chloe take up overwatch positions on the flanks of the village. I'll take Laura...” Laura was Dawn's most inexperienced Marine, she'd only arrived from Camp Sanders a couple of weeks ago, “...and check the village itself, okay? Questions?”

“What do you want us to do if the Shedu decide to join the party?” Kat wanted to know.

“Shoot and scoot!” Dawn replied, “Let Lady Ethel's guns deal with them, we're totally not going down there to fight a battle, okay?”

Once again there was a chorus of affirmative 'Rogers'.

“Okay, First Team,” Dawn stood up ready to head on down into the valley, “by leapfrog, odds and evens...”

Again affirmative answers came to Dawn's ears.

“Odd numbers...MOVE!”

Being an odd number, Dawn activated her grav pack and fired her thrusters. Flying low and fast between the trees, she eventually grounded two hundred yards further down sloop, taking her rifle firmly in her hands she scanned her surroundings by eye before checking her HUD. Several recon drones were feeding her HUD information and so far there was no sign of the Shedu. For a moment Dawn wondered why the sensors on the drones hadn't picked up any villagers; then it hit her. If there were any villagers they were probably in their shelters and would be shielded against all but the most powerful sensors.

It took them less than ten minutes to cover the two miles to the village. The so-called 'village' was in fact a large farm surrounded by cleared but unplanted fields which were in turn surrounded by forest made up of fir-like trees. Crouching in the treeline, Dawn noted the band of semi-cleared land between the forest proper and the fields. The farm was made up of about a dozen buildings both houses and barn-like structures. There were several farm bots parked near to what looked like the main dwelling along with three old, battered pick-ups. The thought struck Dawn that if the ground-cars were still there that probably meant that the inhabitants were still in residence.

“Okay people listen up,” Dawn said quietly into her comms, “looks like the local civ-pop are still at home and we'll have to move them out...” Dawn paused to hear at least a couple of her people sigh in disgust, there were always hold outs. “...Kat, move around to the north side of the forest edge and take up an overwatch position there...”

“Roger that,” Kat replied before she flew off using the forest as cover.

“Chloe, you move east a little and cover us from this side.”

“Roger that,” Chloe replied before running between the trees and taking up a firing position about seventy-five yards east of where Dawn was crouching behind a tree.

“Okay, Laura,” Dawn tried to keep the trepidation out of her voice, she'd realised she'd have to cross maybe five hundred yards of open ground to reach the farm, “you're with me, stick close and don't get scragged...We'll go in low and fast,” Dawn explained, “when we get to the farm we start looking for their bunker, when we find it try not to blast anyone by accident.”

“Roger that,” Laura replied a little self consciously. 

“Okay,” Dawn checked her HUD to see that Kat and Chloe were in position, “follow me!”

Taking a couple of running steps Dawn soon found herself airborne again. Her feet just inches above the field, she pushed her suit as fast as it could go. The new suits that they'd only been issued about six weeks previously were twenty-five-percent faster than the old suits. It seemed that no sooner had Dawn jumped from the forest edge that she was nearing the farmstead and she was having to slow down. Dawn loved the exhilaration of these fast, low altitude flights, but now it was time to ground and start to search the farm. Increasing her altitude by a few feet, Dawn reversed the direction of her body and fired a burst from her jets slowing herself down to come into a gentle landing in front of the main building. Laura, however, came in too fast, bounced back into the air after cutting two furrows in the yard with her feet. Cutting her thrusters too early the newbie came in for a hard landing. Losing her balance she rolled into the wall of a barn and splintered the wooden wall to match wood. Holding her rifle on her hip, Dawn walked slowly over to where the newbie lay amongst the wreckage of the small wooden building and the farm implements it had contained.

“You okay, Marine?” Dawn asked as she looked down at her downed trooper.

“Fair to middling, Corporal,” Laura replied sheepishly.

“Remind me to take you through some flying sims when we get back to the ship,” Dawn said before turning away to start to search the farm, “watch my back, okay?”

“Okay,” Laura replied as she clambered back to her feet and picked up her rifle from where it lay amongst the splintered planks that had once made up the storage hut.

Walking across the yard, Dawn scanned the area with her suit's sensors while at the same time keeping an eye on her HUD in case it showed any advancing Shedu. So far she'd not seen anything that might be a shelter which didn't surprise her as a shelter that was easy to find wouldn't be much of a shelter. Standing still and turning through three-hundred-and-sixty degrees Dawn found herself looking at the main house again. There was something odd about it, she wasn't sure what it was but it didn't look right.

“That house look odd to you?” Dawn asked as she pointed an armoured finger at the building.

“Yep,” Laura replied without hesitation, “there's no cellar...”

“What?”

“Every farm house I've ever seen has a cellar,” Laura explained, “this one hasn't, see,” she pointed, “no windows.”

“I'll take your word for it,” Dawn shrugged, her experience of farms and farm houses was limited, “maybe there's no cellar because the house is sitting on top of the shelter?”

“Maybe,” Laura agreed.

“Better check it out,” Dawn announced as she started towards the house; this was all taking far too long and the Shedu could be here any minute.

Yes they had loads of recon drones up but the Shedu were good at camouflage and jamming Alliance sensors. Of course Terran tech would usually negate any Shedu advantage but you could bet your bottom D’lah that the Shedu would soon come back with jammers even better than their old ones.

Climbing up onto the veranda outside the front door, Dawn's external microphones picked up the sound of the floorboards creaking. The new suits might only weigh in at two-hundred-and-fifty pounds but that still made them too heavy for verandas that weren't built to take that sort of weight. Trying the door, Dawn found it was locked, never mind she thought as she tapped it with the palm of her left hand. The door lock broke and the door flew off its hinges as she stepped into big main room.

“Look for trapdoors or anything out of place,” Dawn called as Laura followed her into the building.

Clumping across the room, Dawn heaved heavy furniture away from the walls or ripped up floor coverings to see if there was and entrance to the shelter she was sure was there somewhere.

“Got something!” Laura called.

Turning her head, Dawn saw Laura standing in front of a dresser in the big old fashioned kitchen.

“Look!” Laura pointed to the floor, the wooden boards were marked by scratches that indicated that the dresser must be a camouflaged door probably leading to the shelter below the house, a Shedu wouldn't have noticed it or if it did probably wouldn't have realised what it meant.

“Got it,” Dawn stepped forward, placed her armoured hand in the small gap between the dresser and the wall and pulled; China smashed to the floor and timber splintered as the dresser was tossed easily across the room, “Gotcha!”

There, hidden by the dresser was a heavy armoured door; there was no handle or intercom visible. Using her armoured fist, Dawn struck the door making it ring like a bell. Listening to her external pick ups Dawn could hear nothing but her own fist strikes.

“I don't think they're coming out,” Laura pointed out just as the house shook violently at the sound of massive explosions.

“Dawn,” Kat's voice came to Dawn over her comms.

“We heard it,” Dawn replied guessing as to why Kat had called.

“Lady Ethel's bombarding something north and east of our position and there's a lot of static on the battalion net so I don't know what or why.”

“That's all I need...” Dawn muttered angrily, “...watch out for Shedu and be ready to scoot outta here, okay?”

“Roger that,” came Kat's calm reply.

“Right, Laura we're gonna have to blast our way in there's no time to do this the 'nice' way.”

Taking an explosive charge from her utility belt, Dawn stuck it on the door where she guessed the lock would be. Stepping back from the door, she thumbed the detonator and watched as the charge blew a neat hole in the door and the wall next to it. Once the smoke had cleared a little Dawn rushed up to the door and pushed it open with her shoulder. Once through the door she found herself standing at the top of a flight of concrete stairs leading down into a dark cellar. Just as she was stepping down onto the next step Dawn's armour rang out as she was hit by a volley of large calibre penetrators, if she'd been a Shedu she'd be dead by now.

“CEASE FIRE, CEASE FIRE!” Dawn yelled over her external speakers before identifying herself, “ALLIANCE MARINES!”

“Get outta here Ally!” a voice yelled back.

“Ma'am, did you feel that explosion just now? That was out ship shooting at the Shedu,” Dawn explained, “we've got to evacuate you before they get here!”

“Get outta here with your lies, Ally,” the woman called back, “There ain't no Shedu demons, never have been...you're just tryin' to steal our land so the mega-corps can strip mine the planet.”

“What!?” Dawn turned to Laura in surprise, “You hearing this?”

“Roger that,” if Dawn could have seen Laura's face she'd have seen her look of total confusion.

“Ma'am,” Dawn tried again, “I don't know who you've been talking to but...”

“DAWN!” Kat's voice broke in over the comms.

“What?”

“We've got a Shedu problem out here,” Kat explained, “a scouting party in platoon strength just appeared on the edge of the forest north-east of the farm.”

“Crap,” Dawn snapped as she tried to think what to do for the best, “Look, report it to the L-t, but don't engage unless they start coming this way...”

“Too late!” Kat started to fire her Light Assault Gun, “Am engaging!”

Standing on the stairs, Dawn listened to the steady, 'THUD, THUD, THUD!' of Kat's LAG and the sharper, more rapid crack of Chloe's M-TAR rifle, for a moment she didn't know how to proceed; just then a thought struck her.

“Okay,” Dawn called, “if there's no Shedu how come you're sitting down there in a shelter?”

“Coz we knew you Alliance bitches would be along to try an' steal out planet,” the woman replied from below.

“Oh,” Dawn muttered to herself, “hadn't thought of that...”

“Come on,” cried the voice, “you're a woman...stop working for 'The First' and join your sisters.”

“Okay look,” Dawn tried one more time, “I'm not lying, there are Shedu...” a loud explosion punctuated her speech as dust drifted down from above to settle on her armoured head and shoulders like dandruff, “...they're out there and...”

“The only Shedu out there are holo-projections,” the woman replied with all the certainty of a fanatic, “those explosions you keep going on about are just pyrotechnics, you don't fool me Ally. If ya ain't gonna join us get outta here and don't come back!”

The external microphones on Dawn's suit picked up the cloth-ripping noise of Shedu machine guns followed by the sound of splintering wood as the Shedu rounds ate into the house.

“Kat,” Dawn called over the section's squawk-net, “what's going on out there?”

“The Shedu are getting closer!” Kat replied as she fired her weapon at the attacking creatures, “there's a lot of them out here...when are we moving?”

“Good question,” Dawn replied, not knowing what to do she decided to kick the problem upstairs and switched to the platoon command net, “Hello One-Two Actual this is One-Two-Three-Alpha urgent message, over.”

“One-Two Actual, send over,” Moore's voice came faintly through the static.

“Three-Alpha, we've found the civ-pop but they won't come out of their shelter and we're being attacked by a Shedu recon platoon, over.”

“Actual, what do you mean they won't come out of their shelter? Over.”

“Three-Alpha, they think that the Shedu are fake and we're trying to steal their land, over.”

“WHAT! I mean, Actual, what? Over.”

“Three Alpha, like I say they don't believe the Shedu are real and they won't come out, over.”

“Actual, okay, stay firm I'll check with battalion, out.”

“That's great,” Dawn muttered angrily, “what am I supposed to do in the meantime?” she turned and started back up the stairs, “come on Laura, Shedu to shoot.”

Squeezing passed Laura, Dawn led the way out into the big room and towards the enemy.

0=0=0=0


	14. Chapter 14

**The Farm.**

Not bothering with the front door, Dawn smashed her way through the wall next to it. Coming out onto the veranda she came face to face with a Shedu warrior. A Shedu warrior was not some mindless killing machine so beloved of the authors of fiction; no, the Shedu are generally tough and smart, the surprise and hesitation the creature felt at being startled by Dawn's unexpected appearance would only last for a moment. Seeing the creature in front of her Dawn knew she had only a fraction of a second to decide what to do. Acting on instinct she shoulder charged the warrior even as she was bring its weapon to bear on her.

Catching the warrior in the chest with her shoulder, Dawn felt more than heard some of the creature's ribs break under the impact. Unable to resist the combined weight of Dawn and her armoured suit the Shedu went flying backwards as it fell off the veranda flapping it's wings ineffectually as she tried to keep her balance. The Shedu's weapon went flying as she wheeled her arms in circles. Eventually the warrior lost her battle with gravity and fell causing a cloud of dust to raise up around her. Grabbing her flamer from its clips on her right thigh, Dawn pointed the weapon and mashed down on the trigger. A jet of bright yellow flame burst from the flamer's muzzle to engulf the warrior in her very own funeral pier. The Shedu screamed hideously as the corrosive chemicals and flames consumed her tough grey-brown hide. However, after only a short struggle with death, the Shedu gave up the ghost and lay in a distorted, blacked shape in the yard outside the house.

Returning her flamer to its docking port, Dawn took a moment to take in what was going on outside the farm house. In the fraction of a second before the Shedu started to shoot at her she saw several Shedu warriors lying face down in the dirt; she could hear the solid, 'THUD! THUD! THUD!' of Kat firing her LAG and the sharp bursts of fire as Chloe fired her M-TAR at the Shedu troops. Reaching for her own M-TAR, Dawn sensed the wooden veranda and what remained of the wall of the farm house behind her explode into splinters as a couple of Shedu fired their weapons at her. The warriors were firing the new sabot rounds and Dawn realised in a flash that she was in danger. If just one of the dozens of little, super dense darts hit her it wouldn't matter if she was wearing armour she'd be dead and shredded before her body hit the ground.

“COVER!” Dawn yelled as she dropped like a stone; the wooden planks that made up the floor of the veranda splintered and creaked ominously as she hit them.

Just as she was struggling to bring her M-TAR into position to fire at the Shedu who appeared to have advanced so that the occupied at least half of the farm, Dawn heard the welcoming sound of Laura's M-TAR firing at the warriors as they tried to creep forward into better positions. The first burst of fire from Laura's rifle hit one of the warriors who'd been aiming at Dawn. The warrior dropped her weapon and slumped to the ground as her buddy changed her point of aim to fire at Laura. But, before she could acquire her new target one of Kat's LAG rounds hit her and exploded sending pieces of smouldering Shedu flying in all directions.

“Okay, people report!” Dawn ordered as she finally got her rifle into a firing position only to find there was nothing to shoot at; the Shedu appeared to have gone into hiding for the time being.

“Shedu've been cheating again, Dawn,” Kat reported, “the bastards musta split into two teams. While one kept our attention out front the other snuck around behind us.”

“Are we surrounded?” Dawn wanted to know.

“Hell no!” Kat replied with a laugh, “They only sent a squad an' Chloe took 'em out no problem.”

“So we're not surrounded then?” Dawn asked for confirmation.

“No, we can bug out anytime we want,” Kat replied, “I was only hanging around waiting for you coz I knew you'd only whine if'n I went back to the section without ya.”

“Gee thanks,” Dawn quipped back, “okay this is what we're totally gonna do...”

Before Dawn had a chance to pass on her orders the Shedu took it into their heads to attack again. A Shedu platoon was made up of five squads each of five warriors. One warrior was equipped with one of their deadly machine-gun like weapons, another with an RPG while the other three had the increasingly dangerous assault shotguns. From what she could see as she looked up from under the hail of fire directed at herself and Laura, who was still in the house, her team had accounted for about a third of the enemy force.

Lying there amid the flying splinters as the Shedu slowly shot the house to pieces, Dawn fired back at the fleeting targets the Shedu presented and decided that this wasn't fun any more and it was time to go home to momma, but first it was time to settle these demonic looking, bastard's, hash. Using her tongue she switched frequencies on her comms and tried to contact the Lady Ethel, a little Star Force gunfire support would let her and her girls get outta here no problem. Unfortunately the only sound she heard on the Star Force support channel was static. Although she tried to work through it she could hear nothing, even boasting her signal and then changing to the emergency channel didn't help. Next she tried her company and battalion HQs, if she couldn't get help from the Lady Ethel she wasn't about to turn her nose up at a salvo or two from the battalion's own mortars. Once again the only thing she got was a blast of white noise in her ears.

“Looks like we're on our own people,” Dawn called as the Shedu fire slackened off again, “we're being jammed. Its looks like our only hope is to do a fighting retreat back to the company position and hope our own side don't shoot us by accident.”

“Roger that,” Kat and Chloe agreed, Laura being the junior Marine said nothing. 

“Okay,” Dawn took a deep breath as the tactical possibilities went through her mind, “Kat, Chloe you give covering fire while Laura an' me exit through the back of the house. Watch your HUDs coz when we stop that's where you're gonna meet us, roger so far?”

“Roger,” called Chloe.

“Yeah, roger that,” Kat replied a little more hesitantly.

“What's up?” Dawn asked.

“Look, we're getting low on rounds,” Kat pointed out.

“Okay,” Dawn nodded inside her helmet, another problem to worry about, “when we meet up we'll redistribute ammo.”

“Yeah, but I think you oughta know I've only got about forty rounds left for the LAG,” Kat pointed out.

“Roger that,” Dawn paused to think for a moment but was interrupted by another storm of Shedu fire, “FECK-IT!” she screamed as the enemy rounds chewed up what was left of the house, “LETS GET OUTTA HERE!!!” 

Leopard crawling backwards in to the illusionary cover of the house, Dawn turned to look for Laura; the girl had cleverly got into position behind the protective cover provided by the big iron cooking range and was firing out of the holes in the walls.

“Follow me!” Dawn called as she scrambled back to her feet and started to head for the rear of the house.

“What about the civ-pop?” Laura called as she hesitated to follow Dawn.

“What?” Dawn came to a halt and turned to stare at the young Marine.

“The civ-pop in the shelter,” Laura clarified.

“No time,” Dawn took hold of Laura's arm and tried to hurry her towards the rear wall, “they've made their choice.”

Dawn knew she was being hard, but she had the lives of her own people to worry about, the religious fanatics in the basement could live or die by their beliefs. If they truly believed that what was happening was some kind of expensive and intricate hoax, well they were in for a nasty surprise in about thirty seconds.

“But we can't just leave them,” Laura pulled her arm from Dawn's grip and started to walk towards the entrance of the shelter.

“MARINE!” Dawn's call stopped Laura dead in her tracks, “Follow me...” Dawn's voice was ice cold, “...and that's an order.”

Pausing, Laura looked from the door and back at Dawn, she could see nothing of Dawn's face but somehow she knew there'd be an expression of steel-like determination on it, her section leader was known for being one stubborn daughter-of-a-bitch.

“The Goddess help you,” Laura muttered under her breath as she turned to follow Dawn.

“The Goddess better help me save your sorry hide,” Dawn replied; Dawn knew her duty after over four years in the Marine Corps, her duty was to the Corps and the people under her command and not a bunch of jackasses who couldn't see what was happening under their very noses. “Hey, don't feel bad about it,” Dawn continued as she led the way to the rear wall and looked out of one of the shattered windows, “think of it as evaluation in action...get on the ready line Marine lets get some!”

Bursting from the rear of the farm house, this time Dawn used the door (she didn't open it however) the two Marines found themselves in a yard littered with chicken coops and abandoned farm machinery. The edge of the forest was only thirty or so yards away, once they were in the cover of the forest they'd be able to use their grav packs to out distance any pursuit, but first they had to get in amongst the trees. Just as Dawn was about to power up her grav pack she was blown off her feet by a blast as the farm house disintegrated behind her, lying on the ground she groaned as she tried to pick herself up.

“I'm getting too old for this,” she told herself.

Clambering to her feet she turned to see a Shedu warrior and her buddy appear out of the smoke and still falling timbers of the now extinct farm. A short touch to her trigger sent the two demons spinning to the ground as her rounds ripped them apart.

“HEY, BOOT!” Dawn yelled over the ringing in her ears.

“Here...” Laura crawled from under the surprisingly intact four poster bed that had landed on top of her.

“Come on...” Dawn forgot about her grav pack and started to run for the tree line, “...lets go! Lets go!”

Sprinting for cover, Dawn was sure she could feel Shedu aiming pippers on her back, but no rounds came her way and she slid to a halt just inside the tree line and took up a firing position to cover Laura. The younger Marine however didn't need covering fire, following her section leader’s example she too had made it to the tree line and had taken up position behind a large fallen tree.

“Kat, Chloe,” Dawn called over her comms, “you see where I am?”

“Got ya,” Kat replied.

“Roger,” Chloe chimed in.

“Break contact and take up position about one-hundred yards to the rear of my location, got that.”

“Got it,” Kat called back.

A second or two after Kat had spoken there was an increase in LAG and M-TAR fire from the front of the house which broke off suddenly as Kat and Chloe backed out of their fire positions and headed deeper into the woods. An unexpected consequence of the Shedu blowing up the house was that Dawn and Laura could now see the Shedu warriors if they broke cover, which they did as soon as they realised that no one was shooting at them. As the warriors ran and flapped their way forward, Dawn and Laura sent short, controlled bursts of fire towards them bringing down three more of the warriors. The survivors went to ground immediately while the warriors lying in support sent a hail of machine-gun fire and RPGs into the forest blowing down several trees and setting the underbrush on fire.

“Move it Marine,” Dawn called as she slid from her position and deeper into the woods.

Pausing only to check that Laura had heard her and was in fact following, Dawn ran bent over until her HUD told her she was a good twenty or thirty yards inside the forest. Standing up she took cover behind a tree, scanning for any sign of pursuit she saw that there was none. The Shedu weren't fools; they changed their tactics since they'd first faced the forces of womankind. In the early battles the Shedu warriors had just come at them in wave upon wave of warriors. Add this suicidal tactic to the fact that their weaponry was basically ineffective against a woman in battle armour and it all added up to huge loses for the Shedu.

As the Shedu had improved their weapons they'd also improved their tactics. Now they used fire and movement just like the forces of womankind did. They'd perfected and improved the performance of their spider tanks, however, they still weren't good enough to face human grav AFVs in a stand up fight and every now and again the Shedu would come at Dawn and her friends in the same old way and she and her buddies would send them running in the same old way. Yes, the Shedu could and did retreat when their leaders decided that the cost for an objective was too high and today the Shedu male in charge of the Recon Platoon decided that following this small group of humans was just too expensive.

0=0=0=0

Breaking contact with a well armed and aggressive foe is one of the hardest actions for a junior leader to perform, conducting a fighting retreat was possibly the hardest military manoeuvre to carry out no mater what rank you happened to be, or how large your force. It was too easy for individuals to panic and flee and far too easy for an aggressive foe to get amongst the retreating forces and screw up their commander’s carefully laid plans. But, Dawn didn't have to worry about this, her forces, even when flying between trees were faster and more manoeuvrable than their pursuers. It only took Dawn a couple of jumps between the trees to realise that the Shedu had abandoned the chase.

“Okay, ladies,” Dawn called over the squawk-net, “rally on me...”

A couple of minutes later the four Marines arrived in the small clearing that Dawn had chosen for their RV point.

“Everyone okay?” Dawn asked as her last Marine arrived; she took a couple of minutes to do a quick visual inspection of everyone's suits and checked their power reserves. “Right,” Dawn sighed with relief when she saw everyone was uninjured and their suits were in full working order, “time to get back to the company.”

“If the company's still there,” Chloe pointed out; Chloe didn't say much but when she did, what she did say usually brought you back to earth with a bump.

“Yeah,” Dawn agreed, “I'd not thought of that...but until it's proved otherwise I'm going to assume that they are and...”

“And we all know what 'assume' did,” Chloe muttered darkly.

“...act accordingly,” Dawn looked at her sisters in arms, “anyone got anything useful to say?”

“Yeah,” Kat stepped forward, “we better swap around weapons I've only got about seven rounds left for the LAG an' if we do bump into the Shedu again, I'd like to be able to shoot at the feckers!”

0=0=0=0

It took Dawn and her team mates about fifteen minutes to get back to her company only to then find out that the Battalion was withdrawing. Their mission was over, they had prevented the Shedu from interfering while Star Force evacuated the Havenite population to a safe offshore island. At the same time a Star Force combat group was due to arrive within hours. While the warships bombarded the Shedu forces on the planet, the transports would be landing an Army Grav-Armour Brigade who would mop up any Shedu that Star Force had missed. It would take about a month, maybe a little longer, but the Havenites would soon be able to go back to their homes and start to rebuild.

The battalion withdrew through the woods, with 'C' Company acting as a rearguard until they came to a large open area of farmland. Here they were picked up by the Lady Ethel's shuttles. It was with feelings of relief that Dawn led her section aboard their assigned shuttle and strapped herself into her seat. Taking off her helmet she took her first breath of un-recycled air in what felt like weeks, but was really only a couple of days. Looking at her buddies she saw they all had the worst cases of 'helmet hair' she'd ever seen, as, no doubt she had. Running her fingers through her short hair, Dawn found it plastered to her head with sweat and she couldn't help but smile. Before she'd joined the Marines she'd had long hair half way down her back, she could have never have imagined having it cut short now she couldn't imagine having it long; it was strange how things changed.

Resting back in her seat, Dawn closed her eyes for a moment as the shuttle's engines started to roar into life before the shuttle lurched forward as it started its take off run. They were going home, no one had died and the mission was a success...apart from those stubborn Havenites who'd refused to leave their farm. Dawn hoped that just before they died, as they no doubt had when the Shedu blew up their house, that they'd seen the Shedu and realised that it all wasn't a galactic con-trick. No the only con-trick was that they'd been fooled into believing that there was in fact a con-trick!

Opening her eyes, Dawn grinned at Kat who was sitting across the aisle from her, Kat grinned back. Although Dawn still missed her Mom, her sister and all her old friends from 'home', she now realised that her section was her family and the Corps was her home. Even with all the being shot at and mind numbing terror she was happier now than she had been in a very long time.

 _“She was just a rookie bootneck and she surely shook with fright,_ ” Dawn began to sing as she grinned at Kat who grinned back at her and joined in with the song they'd all learnt during their jump training. “ _As she checked off her equipment and made sure her pack was tight,_ ” slowly the other members of her section started to sing along, “ _She had to sit and listen to those awful engines roar...And she ain't gonna jump no more!_ ”

By now the entire platoon had begun to sing as the shuttle punched its way towards space and home.

_Gory, Gory, What a helluva way to die,  
Gory, Gory, What a helluva way to die.  
Gory, Gory, What a helluva way to die,  
She ain't gonna jump no more._

_"Is everybody happy", cried the Sergeant looking up.  
Our hero, feebly answered "Yes!", and then they stood her up.   
She jumped out of the open door, her static line forgot,   
She ain't gonna jump no more. _

_Chorus: Gory, Gory, what a Helluva Way to Die!  
Gory, Gory, what a Helluva Way to Die!   
Gory, Gory, what a Helluva Way to Die!   
He ain't gonna jump no more. _

_She counted loud, she counted long, she waited for the shock.  
She felt the wind, she saw the clouds, she felt the awful drop.   
She jerked her cord, the silk spilled out, but wrapped around her legs,   
She ain't gonna jump no more. _

_Gory, Gory, What a helluva way to die,  
Gory, Gory, What a helluva way to die.  
Gory, Gory, What a helluva way to die,  
She ain't gonna jump no more._

_The days she lived, and loved and laughed, kept running through her mind,  
She thought about the girl back home, the one she'd left behind.   
She thought about the medics and wondered what they'd find.   
She ain't gonna jump no more. _

_Gory, Gory, What a helluva way to die,  
Gory, Gory, What a helluva way to die.  
Gory, Gory, What a helluva way to die,  
She ain't gonna jump no more._

_She landed hard the sound was splat her blood went spurting high;  
Her buddies were heard to say, "WHATTA-HELLUVE-WAY-TO-DIE!”  
She was last to leave the shuttle, but the first to hit the ground.  
And she ain't gonna jump no more._

_Gory, Gory, What a helluva way to die,  
Gory, Gory, What a helluva way to die.  
Gory, Gory, What a helluva way to die,  
She ain't gonna jump no more._

_There was blood upon the risers, there were brains upon her chute;  
Intestines were a-dangling from her power armour suit;  
She was a mess they picked her up and poured her from her boots.  
She ain't gonna jump no more._

_Gory, Gory, What a helluva way to die,  
Gory, Gory, What a helluva way to die.  
Gory, Gory, What a helluva way to die,  
She ain't gonna jump no more._

The End.

Bootneck.   
Royal Marine Commandos (British Special Forces). Known to each other as "Royals" but to the rest of the British Forces as Bootnecks. This nickname is derived from them cutting the top from a leather boot and wearing it like a modern neckbrace to stop sailors cutting their throats while they guarded officers on board British sailing ships in the days of old.   
"Don't annoy those Bootnecks over there unless you want to wake up with a crowd round you!" 

AFV: Armoured Fighting Vehicle.

If you want to hear the tradition version of Dawn's song, highlight and right click on the link below...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i15lv61tgoM


End file.
